Revolution Is Simply Saying, “No.”
We see people being honored and decorated every day with medals, certificates and ceremonies for achievements that are truly merited at times or just bestowed at other times because the act bodes well with a certain vision society has for things. Then we have those referred to as “heroes” by disenfranchised communities in honor of the ones who dare to speak up against what they perceive as injustice or inequality.
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Who Does Syria Belong To?
As he jogged casually with his troops, Yair Golan, the general who commands Israeli forces on the Syrian and Lebanese fronts sent what is supposed to be a message to President Bashar Assad, "There are no winds of war."
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What To Do With Syria Now?
While on the surface it looks like Israel is intent on attacking Iran to prevent it from pursuing its nuclear ambition, the subtle but significant moves by Israel indicate that the next likely target is Syria instead. Why not, since striking Syria at this time, will draw Iran along with its satellites (Hezbollah and Hamas) in and – if the plan works -- deplete their capabilities. If we are to believe the local Hebrew media, there was an Israeli attack on a chemical weapons site near Damascus, at dawn this past Saturday. According to Maariv’s report, “Israeli air jets flew over Assad’s palace and other security facilities” in the capital Damascus “before striking the chemical weapons compound.” No official word from Syria or Israel on this incident. At dawn Monday, residents of southern Israel were asked to seek cover in shelters after Hamas fired a rocket from Gaza that exploded in an open are in Eshkol.
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Why Can’t We See That We’re Broken?
A horrific act of terror near the finish line of the Boston Marathon resulted in the death of three people and the maiming of hundreds. Just as with other tragedies that befall us, the noises of condemnation get loud after the fact, the blame games begin; speculations float around and become part of the air we breathe. In this case too, we could not wait for an investigation; we jumped to conclusions as we sought impatiently for any news to understand what was happening to our country.
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Post-Revolution, Women Are Tunisia's Biggest Losers
This is not the Tunisia I know and love. That was my first impression as I recently visited the North African nation I have grown fond of over two decades of extensive visits and following meetings with many of the strong, smart Tunisian women I always admired and respected. Signs of extremism are everywhere from the main streets to the alleys of the capital Tunis which swelled after the revolution by some two million newcomers.
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Egypt’s future in little brave Rajaa’s hands
As soon as I landed in Cairo, I could feel the heaviness of life, economy, politics and breath. It didn’t take long for the first Egyptian to blurt that things were “better under Mubarak’s dictatorship than they are in the Muslim Brotherhood’s lair.” A slew of similar observations followed, mostly from poor people like a taxi driver who told me he sometimes works all day long to barely avoid sending his kids to sleep hungry. Not that life was much better before, but now they are “unbearable,” he said as he asked god’s forgiveness for wishing death over “this life of indignity!”
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Palestinians of 1948: A Failed Plan To Uproot People And Land
The Galilee predates any known old texts and all holy books. Driving through the winding roads of villages and cities of the Galilee is a voyage through the history of a land and its people. Visiting the Galilee in the company of Palestinian Historian Johnny Mansour was an eye-opener. Throughout our day trip he pointed out plenty of evidence about what he and other scholars describe as the old Zionist plan of “Judaizing” all aspects of Palestinian life by removing as many signs of Arab Palestine and replacing them by the new face of Israel and its mainly European Jews who migrated there after 1948. “It’s a well calculated and dangerous practice,” says Mansour. In addition to pushing Arabs out or squeezing them into areas and neighborhoods, it consists of changing names of places from Arabic to Hebrew, uprooting the native olive trees and planting in their stead the larger and greener kinds of trees that “recreate the sense of home for the masses of European Jews migrating to Israel.” According to Mansour, this all began after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and continues to this day.
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Big Brother and The City – The Case of Damascus Then and Now
By Guest Blogger Hanibaael Naim
Editor's Note:
Syria enters the third year of its uprising in devastation to the people and land. Satellite imagery gives a grim picture of what has become of the land while the horror of a rising death toll now at more than 70,000 according to the UN and more than a million refugees scattered around the world facing a dangerous and uncertain future.
In observance of this anniversary, we chose to post an updated version of last year's 'Big Brother and The City: The Case of Damascus' by guest blogger Hanibaael Naim. In his in-depth analysis of the relationship between a dictator and the city he controls, Naim describes Damascus as Bashar Assad's last stronghold. Two years after the peaceful uprising, Naim describes how the face of dissent changed with time and why he believes that the "decisive battles are near" through this analysis and its conclusion.
I'm always grateful for guest bloggers for carving time out of their busy schedules to share their insights with the octavianasr.com audience. I hope that you find those additions helpful and enriching. Your feedback is always appreciated.
Our life is defined by cities. Those we belong to and love stir deep emotions in us such as pride, home, inspiration and nostalgia. Dictators also love their cities, but theirs is a story of obsession and control. An abusive relationship that can last for decades and can only be broken by force or revolution!
Once considered routine in the Middle East, this bizarre relationship between tyrants and cities has become a pressing issue in light of the Arab Spring. In Syria today, Bashar al-Assad is a dictator hanging by the capital city of Damascus, refusing to relinquish power even if the entire country is destroyed one city at a time, and every message of dissent killed along with its messenger.
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What Haifa Taught Me
It has crossed my mind on several occasions during my lifetime that Haifa is the city I could one day live in. Diverse, lively and has a great beach.
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Ramallah Is Palestine
No other city says Palestine to me more than Ramallah. At the Kalandia checkpoint, a large Israeli sign warns visitors they are about to enter Palestinian territories and that as such their safety and security are under threat. The obvious separation wall Israel has erected is an eyesore that immediately sets a mood of desperation and isolation. The huge cement wall which Israel calls “security fence” is tall and lifeless. It separates, divides even West Bank residents from their schools and businesses. It explains in no uncertain terms how difficult and challenging life behind it must be.
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Jerusalem Is Ours
To visit Jerusalem is considered a pilgrimage no matter what your religion or ideology. Its mysticism is hard to miss. You feel it through your pores, into your bones and all the way deep into your soul. The outpour of faith and awe of its visitors reverberate at so many different levels of one’s being and its history touches you so deep that expression becomes impossible.
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Fragmented Lebanon A Safe Haven for Syrians
Walking around the fashionable Hamra area of Beirut recently I was shocked by the amount of Syrian accents I encountered. Young and old, pedestrians and car riders, patrons at sidewalk cafes and restaurants, teenagers hanging at neighborhood corners, high-end shoppers and bargain hunters, in hotel lobbies and apartments; dialects of various Syrian cities were noticeable everywhere. Even the staple Beirut beggars have started to sound distinctly Syrian.
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Guest Blog: My Few Hours in Monte Carlo
by Magda Abu-Fadil
I finally made it to Monte Carlo.
Not as a gambler, but a visitor who missed the opportunity several times during previous trips to the French Riviera where I spoke at events or addressed university students.
Read more »Labels: Arab, Casino of Monte Carlo, Egypt, French Riviera, Grasse, Guest Blog, Hotel de Paris, James Bond, Mediterranean, Menton, Middle East, Monaco, Monte Carlo, Nicole Kidman, Prince Albert II, Russian, Sciences Po
The New World Dis-Order
The pulse of the world is going at an alarming rate signaling an inevitable explosion. While some individuals and politicians are concerned only with their small turf, the entire globe is going through transformation adding emerging crises to already accumulated challenges and unresolved problems.
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Insisting on Backwardness
Why should everything logical be turned into a controversy in Lebanon, and why should commonsense modern laws be so agonizingly difficult to pass? I’m not going to discuss the shameful fact that Lebanese woman still does not have the right to naturalize her children or spouse, although that is one of the most backward signs of a nation ever. Today I’ll follow the trend and write about the Topic Du Jour, the proposed civil marriage law and the controversy it has stirred.
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A Tale of Two Maryam’s (Part II)
Marie was a beautiful Palestinian woman from Haifa who, like any young woman of the 1930’s, aspired to marry a good man and raise her own family. She met Youssef, a young Lebanese man From Bkassine who had immigrated to Palestine with his family in search of a better life. Under the British Mandate, immigrants to Palestine were given the choice of having the Palestinian citizenship or keeping their Lebanese nationality, but they could not have both. Youssef’s family chose the Palestinian citizenship: It made life easier since they lived permanently in Palestine and ran a successful restaurant business in the Horse-and-Carriage Square (Sahet El-Hanatir) in the heart of Haifa.
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A Tale of Two Maryam’s
(The first of two installments)
This is a true story that began when Palestine existed as an entity under the British Mandate, and shared soft borders with Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Egypt. Life then was very simple and decisions were made short term, although they bore lifelong consequences. Most stories passed on through the generations speak of basic plans for weeks or months, never years or decades, let alone one’s entire life or the life span of their descendants. No one from that distant past had imagined, even in their wildest dreams, life’s upcoming twists and turns.
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Nonviolent road to Palestine
The Palestinian struggle for statehood has been for the most part a violent one. Whether one agrees or disagrees with its violent path and the goals it achieved, it is important to remember that Palestine today is at the verge of becoming once more a part of the international community after seven decades of being denied that right and privilege.
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My Dear Brothers… I Understood You… Who Are You?
The Syrian Opera House is probably the most significant part of President Bashar al-Assad’s latest speech. A venue very fitting for a staged performance by Syria’s strongman as he put on a well-scripted show to say nothing new and offer no substance to a people suffering through the worst political and military crisis in its history.
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Welcome 2013!
In the big scheme of things, today is nothing more than another date in a calendar. Yet, people give it great importance and treat it with reverence as if a period is truly ending and another one is starting. If we were on an island in the middle of nowhere, with no watches to tell the time or calendars to point out the date, would we know the difference? Would it even matter? The importance of bidding the old year farewell at parties and welcoming a new year in pomp and circumstance remains a mystery to me. Yet, I continue to join millions of celebrants in this senseless ritual. It might be that, deep down I believe that something good is about to manifest itself with one simple movement on a calendar. Maybe I need a symbolic action to revive my hope -- killed by the previous years -- that our world will have another chance at righting the wrongs or that my fate is truly embarking on a new path that might bring new people, new experiences, and new excitement.
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2012 The Year Of The Arab Woman
As this eventful year draws to a close, we are humbled by the heavy toll the Syrian people have paid and continue to pay for their freedom. As expected, President Bashar al-Assad has shown his willingness to sink the entire country in a bloodbath rather than admit his government’s failure to uphold a façade of peace and stability it was able to propagate for decades. Syrians face a bloody holiday season with no clear direction as to how their crisis will end or when. There is no telling who will be at the helm when it is all over, what shape will the country be in at that time, or who will be left alive of the civilian population to carry thenation through a healing process and back into prosperity.
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Syria: The Beginning of The End?
Bashar al-Assad must be finally seeing the writing on the wall: “You are done Mr. President!” One has to give him credit for staying the course and playing strongman for almost two years, a quality or vice many predicted he cannot pull off. Well, he did and he has survived so far the fate some of his Arab counterparts have faced. He remains in a position to negotiate his way out of the impasse. But, the clock is ticking, and his chances to step out with a saved face are fading by the second.
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The Millionth Red Line
We speak of red lines all the time as if they are hard, well-defined not-to-be-crossed lines because they will certainly bring undesirable consequences. We forget that the red line is a virtual line that often lives only in the head of its beholder, and can have any color of the rainbow or all its colors at once. It’s just agreed upon by society that we refer to it as the red line to suggest a halt, a “STOP!” It hardly ever brings this result; as people say it but rarely mean it if any.
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Palestine.. What’s in a name?
When one word is worth a million rockets, that word must be Palestine!
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Gaza’s Eight Days of Terror: What Victory?
Victory these days has become a cheap commodity that warlords bestow on each other to lift the morale and propagate a false sense of achievement.
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Hamas Terror and Israel’s Greater Terror
Benjamin Netanyahu is taking the state of Israel to new levels of inhumanity and senseless bloody murder. In the past week, he has reduced one of the most powerful armies in the world to a band of thugs, assassins of Hamas terror targets and petty murderers of innocent Palestinians.
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Arabs and Obama’s Second Term
America elected a president, but the whole world had something to say about it. Reaction in the Middle East was mixed from those who shrugged pretending total disinterest to those who jubilated for no apparent reason and others who wept also for no good reason. Still there were others who believe any President of the United States is bad news for them and the region on account of the U.S.’s historical, unwavering support of Israel.
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Who Will Mend Our Bruised Up World?
As the United States of America holds its breath waiting for what the election dawn holds, this is a time to reflect on who we are as Americans and world citizens.
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Presidential Race Seeped In Racism
In one week, the U.S. will elect a president to lead it for the next four years. In the best of worlds, we would be able to predict who that person might be with a degree of certainty and margin of error. But
this has not been the case for recent U.S. elections. Lately, they have always been “too close to call.” The fiasco of the Bush V Gore, Florida re-count and the Supreme Court intervention in 2000 to settle
on a winner is the perfect example. Who doesn’t remember the faulty punchcard voting machines, hanging chads, missing ballots?
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Selling Their Soul To Feed Their Master
The Lebanese traitors who concern themselves with a foreign master and its survival over their country’s peace and security are the scum.
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The Sheep of Panurge
One of my favorite readings from primary school is the story of “The Sheep of Panurge.” I must have been 9 years old the first time I came across it in class and listened to my French teacher explain with a very serious tone the “moral of the story.”
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My Sad October Memory
I had just moved permanently to the United States and was struggling with a cultural shock: No family, no friends, new job, and a taxing immigration process. Not to mention the personal life of a young independent woman uprooted from the only culture she has ever known to be planted in the vast and overwhelming “land of the free and home of the brave.”
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Netanyahu’s Bomb Goes Awry
Someone needs to tell the Israeli Prime Minister that his old persuasive tactics are in dire need of updating. Between the gigantic political shifts due to the Arab Awakening and our world becoming more transparent and better connected thanks in part to social media turning privacy and secrecy into things of the past, debunking propaganda and its masters is becoming mainstream. Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be way behind on what works and what does not work when trying to scare the UN General Assembly and its member nations, most of whom unsympathetic due to Israel’s track record of ignoring all UN resolutions against it in its ongoing conflicts with Palestinians as well as its other neighbors.
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No Threat Is Bigger Than Terrorism
It is mindboggling how many issues around the world remain unresolved! Conflicts, wars, tensions, land disputes, political divisions, violence, economic strife, cultural failures, ethnic confrontations, just to name a few. Each nation faces challenges man-made or imposed by nature or geography. Every one of us can list a number of unresolved issues that block our path, preventing us from moving forward, slowing us down or derailing us.
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Claiming Back Our Arab Spring
We’ve come to the real test of an Arab awakening that awed us, inspired us, energized us and gave us much hope in a future we’ve only been able to dream of before.
The test came in a simple, naïve, uncomplicated straightforward form, and we failed miserably.
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Autumn wisdom
We all love to be free. At least that’s what we say at every opportunity. We like to express our opinion, we like to practice our religion, we like to dress as we wish and we love to say what is on our mind without restrictions. Most of us accept rules and regulations and abide by them. The majority of us respects the law and stays out of trouble. It could be because we fear the punishment that might ensue if we don’t, but hopefully out of good citizenry most of the time.
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The Accidental Refugees
A note circulating online a few weeks back addressed “our Syrian refugee brethren in Jordan,” and offered free housing to Syrian families in need of a place to stay. The terms “Syrian Refugees” sounded alien and shocking to me at the time. But since then, just like a well-orchestrated symphony, the words started popping up in various places, seeping into the news next to reports of bombings, massacres, a rising death toll, roadside bombs and the clearly evident sectarian strife. Words such as Christian and Druze started to appear occasionally as if to annotate the narrative and make it more fitting of a soon-to-be-announced full fledged civil war.
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The Upcoming Generation Moving Backward
We live in a fascinating world where older generations look up to the youth with renewed hope, unprecedented respect and great anticipation. The younger generations carry so much potential for real change, more so than any previous time in history. It is no secret that I am a big fan of those young spirits who desire change and possess the tools to effect it in ways totally foreign to generations before them. Between the mastery of new technologies, the timely activism, the unquestionable desire for freedom, and the great opportunities to make a difference in our world, the upcoming generation has got it all. Why is it then that time and again we are faced with the grim image of their unfulfilled results? Why is it that youth is unable to move forward? What is holding them back? Could it be that nothing is sacred to them anymore?
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The Mother of All Banana Republics
When all hell broke loose in Lebanon with kidnappings and counter kidnappings, road closing and counter road closing, not to forget the ceremonial tire burning and ultimate airport shut down, it seemed unimaginable for my trip through Beirut to go through.
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The elite mob
The mob business added three new names to its ranks with the indictment of former Minister Michel Smaha (and the Syrian chief of national security and a Brigadier-General of the Syrian Army) on charges of plotting to carry out assassinations and destabilize Lebanon. The official charges against Smaha along with gruesome allegations leaked by media outlets could not be more serious: Some of them, such as smuggling explosives from Syria with the purpose of assassinating Lebanese religious and political personalities, inciting violence and strife among his own people, for the benefit of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, are shocking and hard to comprehend.
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Our gay brothers and sisters against a rotten morality
Foreward
In a Beirut suburb last week, police raided a movie theater and arrested all 36 patrons on suspicion of homosexuality. All men were subjected to an anal probe to prove their homosexuality before most of them were released. It is not clear what happened to those who were not released. Homosexuality is still viewed as a vice in most parts of the Middle East although the numbers of outspoken gays and lesbians are on the rise and LGBT groups are forming across the Arab world to protect the rights or their communities. You can read more about this story here: http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/lebanon-anal-probes-gay-436850
Our gay brothers and sisters against a rotten morality
It matters very little how extremely homophobic some people are or how judgmental they act towards gays and lesbians. How derogatory anyone can be in describing or treating the gay community matters even less. That is simply because despite the historic discrimination against them and the bad repute around their lifestyle and sexual choices, they exist and will continue to exist in every home, every neighborhood and every city. They are our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, our cousins, our neighbors; they are even our mothers and fathers and their parents and grandparents before them.
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Mitt Romney’s failed attempt at foreign diplomacy
Clearly Mitt Romney is trying to enhance his almost non-existing foreign affairs credentials through an orchestrated trip overseas. If his performance is any indication of what a “President Romney” has to offer, we have seen and heard plenty to know that he will fail miserably. That’s not to say he might not be elected president come November. Everything is possible and the U.S. has a history of being swayed, even overtaken, by the conservative propaganda machine. Just look at George W. Bush’s election in 2000 (even if the jury is still out as to whether it was a “stolen” election or not) and more shocking, his re-election in 2004.
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The Syrian tank that kills indiscriminately
I write today as a person scarred forever by the relentless bombardments of a certain Syrian tank whose sole mission was to stay directed at our neighborhood and shoot one shell after another with the aim of destroying lives and properties, reaping traumas and terrorizing young hearts as well as old ones indiscriminately. The Syrian regime that ordered the consistent, deadly bombings on a daily basis on our neighborhoods in Lebanon in the 80’s and 90’s had clearly hoped no one remains alive to remember, let alone pass on our oral history to future generations.
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Syria and the fog of war
Forgive me for elevating the conflict in Syria to the alarming “war” status. War is something I don’t take lightly and advise everyone not to either.
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Language of peace versus language of hate
At first I
thought the peaceful feeling was a result of the altitude of 1000 meter. Then I
considered it could be the general atmosphere, an old castle-hotel turned
conference center in the mountain village of Caux, perched on top of the city
of Montreux in Switzerland. This large mountain house feels like a
metamorphosis of all its participants, diverse, proud and strong. Although it
is abuzz with a series of conferences throughout the summer, it is the quiet reflection
and the moments of silence that speak louder than words here.
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The real goddess of love must be crying blood
People invoke ancient gods names in vain as decorations to adorn buildings or to add a dramatic effect to a touristic site. Some use them to look cultured as if they know something about ancient Roman or Greek mythology or anything at all for that matter.
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Egypt’s Islamist president: Does the U.S. have a plan?
The Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed under Hosni Mubarak, the great friend of the United States and the guarantor of a very delicate peace treaty with Israel, sits now atop Egypt’s presidency.
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Egypt elects a president Of the Muslim Brotherhood.. That’s not the end
The presidential election in Egypt was supposed to be an historic event celebrated the world over. It was expected to be the shining symbol of a youth movement that inspired people across countries and continents. Instead, the race pitted an Islamist of the Muslim Brotherhood against a former Prime Minister, remnant of the Mubarak regime, with representatives of the revolution a distant third or out of the race altogether.
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Bowing to the genius of my teacher.. Kissing his hand for the last time
I will always be grateful to Ghassan Tueni for teaching me his own brand of journalism that is rarely practiced to this day anywhere in the world. It is pure journalism with a mission to inform, enlighten and make a difference.
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The Syrian revolution and the Russian disco
Iranians have made progress with their American interlocutors. Indeed, they had official talks recently though it remains unclear what their conversations were centered around or whether they agreed to anything. It is however safe to say they discussed matters of interest to both countries, and tried to identify some common grounds to help chart the future of their relationship.
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When Syria's babies are killed their cradles scream, "Freedom!"
Heartbreaking images have been coming out of Syria since the beginning of the uprising sixteen months ago. They represent a crucial documentation of some of the worst violence against civilians we have seen during the historic Arab awakening we have been following with angst and high hopes. In every conflict, there exists a gut-wrenching point where the atrocities are too much to stomach and the images too graphic to fathom. In the Syrian uprising, the Houla massacre this past weekend represents that turning point for Syria and the Baathist regime of President Bashar al Assad.
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Lebanon's war never ended to start again
We have watched Tripoli's violence escalate for a couple of weeks knowing fairly well that things cannot end well for Lebanon. The concern and angst were apparent as politicians made predictable statements, pundits offered analysis and speculation, while others simply prayed that things end soon and everything goes back to "normal."
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