bigHead

Smoking in August

2011-11-24T23:47:00.000-08:00

There was never enough room on the bus for me to start with. The twelve empty seats couldn't accommodate the guilt that I was carrying with me in my pockets. I knew that stealing the last pack of cigarettes from under my dad's table would drive him crazy, but I did it anyway.

I hate cigarettes, but I love making smoke come out of my mouth. I find it to be an apt representation of my anger. I just wish I didn't have to depend on cancer ridden sticks, carefully packaged for my hidden desires. In Canada, cigarettes and smoke represent a tarnished and mutilated history of native culture. Stolen from the wisdom of elders, and turned into the deadliest of tools, cigarettes embody the theft of Turtle Island.

Despite the blood stained carton packs decorating my room, I crave the fire in my hands. Like a fool, I mistake pettiness for power. Around the world, there is more readily available access to cigarettes than clean water. For the poor, cigarettes replace food for fuel. Flicking away the facts, I recluse to my red bubble, and hold up my smokes in radical rejoice of my so called resistance.

It would be unfair to step on the truth in my limited lopsided lashing of lighting cigarettes. As such, I must openly embrace those memories spent in Baghdad smoking the night away. The stench of despair in the air coupled with the coughs of burning lungs captures the dying days of Iraq in a way nothing else can. For that, I hate and love cigarettes the same.

What's next?

2011-09-29T03:06:00.000-07:00

It took a fleeting glimpse into my eyes by a passerby, from a million miles away, for me to remember that I used to write.

He spoke of letters lying in a pool of their own shit, holding on to each other for hope. He described how he saw words giving up on their lives, crumbling one by one into an abyss of meaningless strife.

He was unable to focus on the reasons for the decrepit state of affairs, although he mentioned that a wide selection of explanations hung neatly from the rotten rooftops of the restless room. An incessant noise made it impossible for him to stay beyond the eternal second he spent peeking through rusted shields, and right into my soul, but his story shook my heart.

I told him that sketching stories into the sky is a godly talent bastardized by the diarrhetic stunts of fragmented minds. I described how easily erected essays about nothing and everything decorate our worlds with warning signs of the way in which our minds are heading: nowhere; and that amidst these corrupted clouds, I have quietly wrapped myself with a comfortable cocoon of shame and closed all roads leading into my world.

Elsewhere in the world, history forces itself onto helpless hoards of unsung heroes everyday.

Instead of putting words into sentences to disturb the sentences which we are forced to serve, I draw circles around myself and dance to the drunken sounds of greedy waves eating away at our broken shores.

Amman, Libya, and the Arabian Sea.

2011-05-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I visited Amman for the first time in 1992, on my way out of the Gulf, destination unknown. That year, my family had packed as much of their lives as possible into a dozen tired suitcases and said goodbye to Abu Dhabi, their home away from home for the better part of a decade. Operation Desert Storm ushered in a new era of American imperialism for the region, and a new lifetime of exile for Iraqis like me. From the outside, Amman looked confused, tired, and beat down, a lot like the scores of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees that make up most of its population. Tribalism, monarchy, and its proximity to Israel and Iraq have never given the city a chance to develop its own irrelevant and narcissistic identity, like most cities around the world strive to do. In fact, Amman, as capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, despite its sparse offerings, has played a very critical role in supporting an important and international project: the colonization of the Arab world. Their list of achievements in this area is surprisingly quite extensive: peace treaties and economic agreements with Apartheid Israel, denial of citizenship rights to Palestinians, support of Iraqi dictatorship and then American occupation, and of course the subjugation of the rights of its own citizens are just some of its contributions. Therefore, recent news that Amman would become another city enclosed by the protectorate of the Gulf Cooperation Council, comes as no surprise at all.

During our stay in Amman, my father ventured out to Libya, by taking a boat from Malta, and visited oil companies operating in Tripoli, in the hopes of finding employment. He was one of tens of thousands of Iraqis that had been to the North African state to find economic sustenance for their families. His trip was not fruitful, and in many ways, I am thankful for that. As many of us know, Libya is currently undergoing a painful and mandatory imperialist exercise: the undermining of efforts by grassroots revolutionary movements in favor of maintaining steady oil supplies to the West. As an Iraqi, I know a thing or two about that. A recent visit by American senator and war monger John McCain to so-called revolutionaries in Libya allowed Gaddafi’s dictatorship to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The cooption of the Libyan revolution by America was a step in ensuring that no revolutionary movements would entertain the thought of disrupting, or more audaciously, controlling, the export of the country’s natural resources. And as gatekeeper for Libya’s oil for many decades, Gaddafi’s henchmen knew that their presence would be maintained, even for a little longer, as long as oil ran beneath their feet and NATO jet fighters hovered above their sky.

From the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, American intelligence units and diplomatic missions are struggling to contain continued defiance by Arabs against imperialism, and their locally hired goons. Because, beneath the fake smiles of Obama and Sarkozy, Pennsylvania Avenue and Paris both know that Arab dictators will not be the only beasts scouring for shelter from the relentless rains of blossoming dreams this summer. Pieces from shattering statues in Tunis and Cairo will be felt a million miles beyond our liberation squares. They will find their way back to the glass mansions that built them. For decades, so called Western Democracies forced millions of workers, farmers, and students in the Arab world to live under the merciless boots of their merciless regimes. So when news broke of Osama Bin Laden’s death and his burial at sea, America positioned itself to make a shift from the War on Terror, to a return of more tried and tested colonial tactics: containing our struggles to be free.

A spoken word piece never to be spoken.

2011-03-19T03:19:00.000-07:00

Written on the eighth anniversary of the American occupation of Iraq, to the sounds of Naseer Shamma, and the memories of a lifetime gone by.

Our anniversaries pass us by more quickly every year.

The destruction of a people broadcast in Technicolor for consumption by shattered eyes and wasteful minds. Scripted lines of hypocrisies and lies carve their trickery into my brother’s chest. The era of democracy by theft has its foot firmly rooted in the back of my mother’s neck. Those ballot boxes are bleeding to death, with every breath fighting against the diagnosis of silence. Violence in the contaminated breasts, rotten vegetables, polluted nests, and disfigured skies of Baghdad knows no rest. Delivered from the West, fighter jets drop fishing nets filled with hate and disrespect. A people broken into sects brings joy to the appetite of uninvited guests. The fate of hungry children scribbled on a contract bringing wealth to a Wall Street desk with no test or tribulation. How many more years of occupation? Rivers of tears and sweat flood our cities with devastation, while money flows back into the pockets of those who ordered my father’s assassination. This is Iraq. A country laid out flatly on its back by rolling tanks and decades of suffocation.

Our anniversaries pass by us more quickly every year.

Refugees sell their dignity at the nearest gas station. Girls sold on the streets of neighboring nations. Death by penetration for an entire generation. Patience is the religion for those who sleep under clouds of eternal frustration. Lost in the equation of oil, blood, and colonization. In search of government issued identification to stop their creation from turning into broken bones and dust. Their skin color is rust. Everything they eat brings disgust to mouths filled with distrust for every drop of rain and wind gust. The sun refuses to share its light on a nation whose exodus was shoved through the windows of the nearest bus. Out of Iraq. A country under attack. The lack of choices. The only voices we hear whisper that our anniversaries pass by us more quickly every year.

And that is my greatest fear.

The Gulf Cup: Much More than Football

2010-11-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

For the Iraqi men's national football team, the road to Aden has been long. After landing in Manama around 7am on a short flight from nearby Dubai, the Iraqi team spend the better half of the day sleeping on the floors of the Bahraini airport, in between chairs, hiding in the prayer room, exhausted, trying to escape the aggressive attitude of air-conditioning and indifference in the Gulf. The Asian champions were waiting to board a connecting to flight to Yemen, where teams from the Gulf are gathering to contest the 20th edition of the Gulf Cup, due to start tomorrow.

The experiences of these Iraqi passport holders traveling at the expense of their corrupt government are in stark contrast to those of their richer counterparts who arrived in the Yemeni capital on chartered flights that flew nonstop from their respective capitals. If the Iraqi government can't organize a direct flight from Dubai to Yemen for a few dozen of the most important people in the country, then Iraqis have a better chance of seeing snow in July than witnessing any improvements on the ground.

Nonetheless, these kinds of trials and tribulations are no stranger to athletes from Iraq. A history of dehumanization at the hands of the own government, whether it was corporal punishment under a maniacal Uday Saddam Hussein, or utter disregard complements of a stubborn and incompetent Hussain Saeed, both of whom have had their ways with misgoverning the beautiful game in Iraq, the country's performance has been nothing short of miraculous.

Only months after the horrors of American occupation, the Iraqi Olympic team took the 2004 Athens games by storm by reaching the bronze medal match only to lose narrowly to a star studded Italian side. This set the Iraqi football machine in motion and drove it to arguably its highest achievement yet: winning the Asian Cup of Nations in 2007.

Since then, however, the Lions of Mesopotamia, as they are commonly known on the streets of Iraq, have had their share of setbacks. An early exit in World Cup qualifications and a string of bad showings at the Gulf Cup have embodied the demise of the game in a country obsessed with everything that is football. This fall from glory has also been accentuated by an anemic domestic league where games are played on rotten pitches to the tunes of fan violence.

As Iraq endeavors to win its fourth Gulf Cup over the next two weeks, the fact that the tournament is being held in Yemen must be somewhat of a relief to a soccer team struggling to hold itself together. In many ways, Aden is very similar to Baghdad. In addition to both cities enjoying a rich history, the two capitals are similar in terms of their political instability. Although matters in Iraq can not be compared to the relative stability in Yemen, the Gulf Cup has been met with protest, violence, and a massive security crackdown.

The hosts are desperate to promote a facade of unity between the North and South of the country which came together in a manufactured merger in 1990 after a tumultuous history of struggle between communist and nationalist elements. Since their unification, a brief civil war in 1994 and a growing movement of discontent from the South have left the country on the brink of complete collapse.

In the weeks leading up to the tournament, rocket propelled grenades have visited the May 22 stadium in Aden twice while thousands of protesters have battled police officers in opposition to any public relations benefits that the Gulf Cup might bring to the governments off the backs of the oppressed. The Yemeni government is also obsessed with proving itself to its richer colleagues in the Gulf and thus taking a concrete step towards greater regional integration.

The security of southern Yemen tells only part of the political saga unfolding ahead of the Gulf Cup. To the north, separatist Houthis have once again flared up their demands by battling with Yemeni and Saudi security forces in what has been an ongoing conflict with regional and international consequences.

Despite a colossal security presence, several players have refused to join their squads, and the sensationalist Arabic media continues to cast its doubts over the safety of the tournament. In many ways, the concerns are legitimate, but ultimately, talk of security or a lack thereof usually stems from a problematic discourse surrounding a country's placement within the American plan for the Middle East. In the diseased spirit of anti-Black racism in the lead up to the World Cup in South Africa, anti-Yemeni stereotyping is also never far from the fear mongering campaign being waged against the tournament being staged in Aden.

This is not in defense of the Yemeni government which has reportedly spent $600 million of the public's money on stadiums and hotels at a time when the population are suffering from chronic failures in health care, education, and all aspects of the country's infrastructure. This is also the same government that is emerging as a new base for America's war on terror.

Nonetheless, Yemenis have historically been regarded as second class citizens in the Gulf. This is particularly true in Saudi Arabia, where tens of thousands of Yemenis live and work for considerably less pay than their affluent employers. In that sense, Yemenis are desperate to reverse a sense of lost dignity through a positive showing from their football team. Therefore, the opening match scheduled between Saudi Arabia and Yemen seems to be the ideal way to set the tournament on fire, figuratively speaking of course.

For the other countries participating in the regional tournament, unrecognized by FIFA, a win in the Gulf Cup is a much needed boost for Football Associations failing to impress their local audiences, even in instances where millions of dollars are spent on soccer. For Oman, the defending champions, a growing generation of gifted players wants to continue a recently found tradition of winning by successful defending their title. In Kuwait, a renaissance of might on the pitch is set to revive historic dominance of the tournament. For the Emaratis, a sleepy decade and a half has passed since the magic of the country's golden generation, and fans will surely look to this tournament to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Bahraini disappointment in the final stages of World Cup qualifications for the last eight years seems to still cast its powerful shadow over a gifted bunch, and a tough tournament is waiting for the island team. Finally, Qatar, with an army of naturalized foreigners, is still unable to find that elusive moment on the pitch to gain some momentum for a country vying to host the World Cup in 2022.

Despite the incentives dangled in front of all the participating teams, there is no greater joy than that which is in store for Iraq if they lift the trophy, coincidentally designed by an Iraqi artist as well. The Iraqi team must overcome tremendous obstacles on and off the pitch to come near any sense of accomplishment in Yemen. However, with the presence of a new German coach, Wolfgang Sidka, who led SV Werder Bremen to victory in the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1998, and a collection of young hungry players battling for a spot in the squad ahead of the Asian Cup in January 2011 could prove the necessary boost to claim victory.

Younis Mahmoud, the Iraqi captain who has been continuously accused of underachieving against Gulf teams who offer the striker tremendous earning potential, recently told a gathering of Iraqis in Doha that Iraq will indeed win the Gulf Cup.

As Iraqi fans across the world hold their breath in anticipation to see if Mahmoud's words come true, the tournament in Yemen brings with it a slew of added elements that will undoubtedly mean that the real story of the Gulf Cup will be determined off the pitch. This is a trend that is going nowhere anytime soon as the next tournament is set to take place in none other than occupied Iraq itself.

A brief history of Iraqi Football:

1948: Iraqi Football Association established.
1951: Dhia Habib takes charge as first full time coach.
1957: Iraq's first international match played against Morocco in Lebanon, drawing 3-3
1964: Win the first of four consecutive Arab Nations Cups.
1966: Opening of Shaab Stadium in Baghdad against Eusebio's Portugal.
1986: First and only appearance in the World Cup in Mexico, losing 1-0 to Paraguay, 2-1 to Belgium and 1-0 to Mexico.
1991: Iraq banned from the Gulf Cup and Asian Games for more than a decade after the Gulf War.
2004: Storm to fourth place in the Athens Olympics, beating Portugal 4-2, Costa Rica 2-0 and Australia 1-0, before losing 1-0 to Italy in the bronze match.
2007: Jorvan Vieira leads Iraq to first Asian Cup, beating Saudia Arabia 1-0 in the final.
2008: Fail to qualify for 2010 World Cup.

Victims to the Vote

2010-11-15T05:00:00.000-08:00

"It has been almost a million months since Iraqis ran to the polls, to fill holes in their souls with bloodstained ballots. Hundreds of candidates dressed up as maggots coloured the liberal lining in occupied skies, and perpetuated the lies that there is democracy. Hypocrisy of the highest order, politicians blaming their failure on porous borders, while blindly following American orders on everything from defence to education. The death of a nation, systematic assassination, and relentless dehumanization of millions of people. The burning of mosques, schools, hospitals and steeples for crumbs of rotten bread. Iraq is dead, shot in the heart and stabbed in the head." ~ Unfinished Letters from Iraq, broken part of a new spoken word piece.

Prior to the vote on March 7th of this year, all the major political factions running in the nationwide elections declared the entire affair to be corrupt and not representative of the people's will. They were preemptively cooking an excuse for any unwanted results that might emerge out of the charade. Independent reports corroborated their suggestions with testimonies of fake registration forms and leaky ballot boxes. However, the elections went through, and the results were applauded by other fake democracies around the world. Since then a constipated coalition building process has left Iraq with no government for more than eight months.

In spite of the satirical sadness of it all, the liberal media, and Iraq's desperate population continue to hold on to the electoral proceedings with religious fervour. From outside Iraq, those who politically organized the occupation see the elections as justification for their complicity in mass murder; while those inside the country try to cope with the immense loss of life by pinning their misguided hopes on the empty promises of one politician or the other.

The inaccuracy of the results and the subsequent drama only tell part of the story. An elections process cleverly diverts all attention from the colossal incompetency of the government, and spins the tall tale of a young fledgling born again country instead. The reality is that democracy in Iraq does not exist beyond the show business of sham elections.

In the absence of food, electricity, water, education, health, safety and dignity, the vote exists merely as a tool to stretch the life expectancy of the occupation and ironically works to quell any grassroots movements that would build genuine democratic institutions in the country. Students, workers, community organizations, women, single mothers, the disabled, orphans, the poor, and all other marginalized sectors of society continue to watch democracy from a painful distance while bearing the brunt of its epic failures.

Some Background

The emergence of a sovereign, self sustained, secular, progressive, economically powerful country in the region was a worrisome possibility for an oil hungry United States, obsessed with growing Soviet expansionism at the time. As such, the last 40 years have witnessed a program of pillaging and exploitation that has eaten its way through some of the most fertile land in the world.

Under Saddam's Ba'ath party, civil society in Iraq was destroyed, personal freedoms exterminated, and the majority of the country's resources were wasted on a paranoid dictatorship and an American proxy war with Iran. Under the sanctions, Iraq's infrastructure was annihilated, millions of people were killed, and theft and corruption took a stronghold in the mismanagement of the country's affairs. Since the occupation, millions more have had their lives destroyed, the greatest systematic extortion of a country's resources successfully executed, and the language of sectarianism has choked the aspirations of many generations to come. Throughout this time, America also unleashed the most violent warfare in the history of mankind.

The elections are just another part of this death sentence issued to Iraq.

In 1963, the CIA backed coup that deposed the populist left leaning government of Brigadier General Abdul Karim Qassim, and eventually brought Saddam's Ba'ath party to power, seems to be only a day away. During the bloody hijack, lists of progressive activists were provided to Ba'athist henchmen by the USA to be murdered in campuses and other public spaces. One of the men touting a gun, terrorizing the University of Baghdad was none other than the esteemed Dr. Ayad Allawi himself, one of the main contestants in the recent Iraqi elections. He is the leader of the Iraqi National Movement (Al Iraqiya), the political party which won the greatest number of seats.

His rival, Nouri Al Maliki, is secretary general of the Islamic Da'wa (Preaching) Party which was established by a collection of clerics in the 1960s to build an Islamic state in Iraq. Although it was not secular like its Ba'athist counterpart, it also saw socialism as its main enemy. From its inception, Al Maliki's party enjoyed an incestuous relationship with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and lived under its protection throughout the entirety of Saddam's regime. Both the party's history and sectarian outlook make it a perfect compliment to the complete destruction of Iraq, and thus has enjoyed great success in occupied Iraq. Currently, the Da'wa Party operates under the guise of the State of Law Coalition which received the second greatest number of seats in the 2010 elections.

Now and Beyond

Both parties are self avowed friends of America and employ a strategy of completely burning Iraq so they can rebuild it according to their own perverted US-endorsed visions of democracy. While Allawi prefers a nationalist leaning neo-liberal death for the country, Al Maliki prefers to bury Baghdad and other cities under the rubble of sectarian strife. In both cases, tyranny, corruption, and mass murder are required elements to complete the task. To that end, America is ecstatic, and is satisfied with playing a role of a divisive dictator from a distance.

From Al Maliki and Allawi, one can also get a sense of the entire Iraqi political spectrum that is killing its way to power. Different variations of religious fundamentalism, ultranationalism, hyperactive capitalism, and incompetency define democracy in the country. And despite their differences in delivery, the outcome is still the same: greater suffering for the people of Iraq. Al Sadr, Al Chalabi, Talibani, Al Dulaimi, Al Hakim, Al Alousi and Al Jaafari are just some of the crooks that have terrorized Iraq for the better part of the last decade.

The solution to Iraq's woes goes beyond its borders, stretching from the impoverished streets of Cairo, over the Apartheid wall in Palestine, and all the way to the coalition killing fields near Kabul. Without an internationalist and radical awakening in the fields and factories of Iraq, the people will continue to be victims to the vote. Without a concerted central effort to rebuild the country's infrastructure, Iraqis will continue to live in near apocalyptic conditions, waiting hopelessly for their imminent death. Without control of the country's resources, Iraq will operate infinitely as a one stop shop for vultures vying for easy profits.

One could argue that choosing a government is a necessary precursor for all these things to take place, but the mechanisms that govern Iraq are far away from the hands of the government. Elected officials are nothing more than glorified pimps that are holding down Iraq's head while it is being violated by dozens of dollar driven demons. In the absence of a progressive, radical, grassroots political program, the death of Iraq will continue to evolve from one election booth to the next.

Posters on a Wall.

2010-11-05T04:04:00.000-07:00

I am infested with memories. They hang from my face like an oily unwashed beard. They refuse to speak. Instead, they dance to the muffled sounds of creaky tables overloaded with the weight of dying dreams.

Trying to arrange my recollections into neatly marked cubbyholes has never worked. There are no childhood memories that can be contained separately from the awkward recollections of adolescence. There is no separation between last year and the one before. Despite their natural state of interconnectedness, the incalculable size of experiences gives me the impression that I have lived thousands of distinctly separate lifetimes.

The earliest memories I have are of my older sister's room in Abu Dhabi, decorated with the excitement of an emerging pop culture in the Eighties that was shaping the mindsets of people around the world. Although later I would learn that many of these images and attached meanings would become an effective weapon in shifting power to societies obsessed with merciless capitalism, at the time, they were glossy windows into a world of colourful imagination and limitless beauty. Exiled, we carry hybrid, sometimes fragmented, identity cards around our necks.

Memories are carried in vessels, charting the seas of subconsciousness, occasionally stopping at islands of recollection, only to set sail again. Sometimes, they are forced ashore by powerful storms fueled by sudden shifts in destiny filled skies. These powerful boats which are entrusted with carrying the substance of lifetimes are the carriers of existence itself. Smell, taste, colour, sound, location, are just some of the ways in which they navigate themselves from one port to the other.

To this day, there are songs loaded with memory that break me into a thousand pieces like a windshield smashed by the impact of a drunk driver. The smell of homes cooked by the searing heat of a family's tales picks me up from my tired hair and drags me to a specific time and place where recollection rolls over me like an angry airplane tearing up the tarmac.

A refugee's suitcase is never big enough. Images that are too large to capture digitally, pixelated by a violent flash of the lights, are just too heavy to be lugged around. Instead, they are quietly buried along the way, near the scene of the crime, with the hopes that the oncoming flock of vultures would find them irrelevant to their endless appetite for death.

Sometimes, music can be stuffed into hungry pockets, and snuck across heartless borders. Once there, on the most foreign of days, the smallest of utterances will shift the ground beneath one's feet, bringing the heat of a playful street to replace the cold concrete. It is only from the memories of stolen lands and destroyed destinies that a radical consciousness will arise to bring back what can never be forever lost.

Although the memory shared in this story is of a little boy sitting on the carpeted floor of a poster plastered playground of a teenage girl; me and my older sister, it speaks to the strength of memories in building analytic tools to take hold of the world around us. The life my parents fought hard to give me emerges from a set of mostly comfortable memories to become a perfect study of how their escape from Iraq narrates the story of a destroyed people.

A journey through the mechanisms that form and kill memories doesn't have to be a painfully selfish and existential exercise where someone masturbates in a cesspool of their own personal plasma. It can be a celebration of the ability of memories to hold together communities, peoples, and their struggles.

From Abu Dhabi to Toronto to Doha, and forever Baghdad, the trail of memories left behind will always embody the ability of the mind to replace the fatal effects of exile with a journey towards justice.

I yearn for a day when I can sit on that same floor, and layout every single story, like a child with his or her favourite toys, and build a world that contains all of my memories into one coherent and durable structure. But when the most fundamental meanings of life change to the tune of fighting for survival, chronology and logic fizzle under the acidic feet of diaspora.

We are always buried with the fear that memories are not our own, but in fact are the sum of other people's lives. Ultimately, nobody owns the creative means to their own story, and in many ways, that is a good thing.

On Art, Hipsters, and Cultural Production.

2010-10-30T02:07:00.000-07:00

"Israel is luring international artists to Tel Aviv to advance a false claim to being a civilized democracy." Desmond Tutu

In the absence of social movements, critical masses, and revolutionary struggles, culture emerges as one of the most effective tools of silencing dissent.

The monopolization of cultural spaces such as film festivals, concerts, art galleries, and publications by an social economic class obsessed with maintaing the status quo produces art branded in a particular way.

Irrelevant, self obsessed, isolated works are heralded as masterful creations while more poignant and powerful pieces are dismissed as being too literal and immature. The existential elite love to wade in a cesspool of abstract asthma, where concepts touch each other for the sole purpose of sensual stimulation. At times, when questioning tyranny is trendy and safe, glimpses into counter culture are allowed, but not long enough to invoke a consciousness that would threaten the existing establishment.

In the world of contemporary cultural production, money is the most popularly used colour, the most recognized musical chord, and the most dominant writing style. The death sentence issued by capitalism to free thinkers, determined to use art as a vehicle for change, means that the sell out train is overcrowded with greedy talent. It also means that the means of producing and distributing art are painfully beyond the reach of those who need to express themselves the most.

From Hip Hop to Cinema, the consumption of historically radical content by apathetic racist youth over the years has caught the eye of large corporations bent on reaping profit off anything. The appropriation of critical art by the same companies that sell everything from cookies to cars has seen the emergence of sound posing as music and movements mistaken for film.

To support this newly found industry, two things have had to open. The systematic breeding of horrible artists, many of whom we are guilty of liking in the same way we like our favourite soft drug; numbing, neatly packaged, and conveniently found everywhere. Secondly, the culture industry has had to ensure the reproduction of infinite generations to consume all this horrendous art.

A particularly painful product has been the emergence of a relatively affluent consumerist bloc that is obsessed with romanticizing poverty and other people's struggles through their patterns of buying material goods. They are hipsters. First seen in the 1940s in the United States, young educated white Americans grabbed the radical might of Jazz and strangled it until it was nothing more than a whitewashed cocktail of cymbals, high hats, and trumpet blasts.

Today, hipsters pose as Kaffiyah clad vegan vultures that have the honour of being the single most important sector of society that has maintained the dominant system of manufacturing and selling culture as a means of oppression. And this applies to all the wealthy parts of the world. From the dehumanized neighbourhoods of Manhattan to the bourgeoisie bubbles of Beirut, mobs of privileged sheltered youth masquerade as militant minds, holding up images of Bob Marley and Chairman Mao on overpriced T Shirts as part of their comfortable part time resistance.

Their presence is specifically excruciating because of their take on and role in worldly affairs. To hipsters, East African food is good, but the colonization of Africa is none of their business, and in fact, might have never happened. In Hipsterville, the Sitar is a beautiful instrument, but any knowledge of it beyond how it looks from a distance, is just too much to handle in their busy schedule of consuming watered down Buddhism and other post colonial kitsch.

But, with hipsters, their racism is not just a passive byproduct of their ignorance. In the Arab world, messy haired maggots with differently branded shoes will regularly be caught in double speak between flowery praise for the rights of women and talking down to South Asian workers on the streets of the Gulf.

In the end, being cultured means being able to buy other people's culture and use it to uphold a system that oppresses those from which they appropriated their latest fad. In turn, most cultural institutions emerge as shopping centers that service this psychopathic derivative of colonialism.

Until next time, find a wall and write on it, and locate some canvas, and start a fight on it.

Art from Love

2010-10-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

Jenny's photography, our words, for your eyes.

Friday's Weather Forecast

2010-10-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Clouds only speak when they move. Otherwise, their majestic silence holds water and weather, and sadness and pleasure in one stretched out moment of chemical calmness. Tomorrow, the skies will be spotless like the floors of a shopping mall forcefully cleaned to death by a lifeless labourer bearing the full brunt of capitalism. The season of suffering is here to stay.

At most, a few months of rain will shower flocks of wild consumers with cheap cologne handed out by sellout gods. The resulting flooded roads might secretly try to cleanse concrete blocks infested with decades of shame but, as an ironic alternative, will probably force sewage out to greet the greediest of feet. A pathetic storm for pathetic times. For now, the only trickle that meets the eye is that of a sweaty workforce, melting under the heat of a persistent summer.

Stories of snow capped escapes will continue to wet the appetites of millions of desperately sedated citizens, while an electric breeze will play silly pop tunes throughout the week. The sun is due to set soon, and will rise from the remains of his relaxed pocket tomorrow at noon.

Until, then, the night is yours to set on fire.

Back to the Blog

2010-10-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

"Between my sea and another" - Karim Sultan

It has only been a few hours since the last broken pencil was surgically removed from my broken torso, and yet, I find myself immersed, head first, into another sea of liquefied amnesia. But, according to our invisible neighbor, with his tongue solidly stuck in my ear, "these are the trials and tribulations of trying to write."

It has been Manama, Cairo, and New York since we last spoke and despite the long procession of days, dilated and depressed, little has changed around me. Tall blood-covered buildings still surround me and apathy and greed continue to bound me.

In Iraq, where the lion's share of my soul rests restlessly, destruction continues to dance to the tune of American occupation. From Mosul to Basra, echoes of "elections" gone by bounce off broken dreams. Thousands of years of literary and poetic might fail to capture the incompetency of the Iraqi government. Theft, corruption, nepotism, and murder have become words that struggle and fail to describe the complete scope of criminality involved in the mis-governance of Iraq.

Over the last seven years, every single injustice carried out against Iraq, and Iraqis worldwide, has been whitewashed and swept under a carpet of carefully calculated confusion. The occupation has either been perversely compared to liberation or it has been diagnosed as the product of historic sectarian violence. Both of which are untrue.

As a result of this foggy fanfare, the guilty are allowed to perpetually elude the guilt. Bloody hands and gluttonous pockets taunt the rotten skies of Baghdad. Around the world, self proclaimed Iraqis sing the praise of the American government louder than they pathetically cheer for their favorite European soccer team. For most, the death of Iraq justifies their exile. A self preserved elite coated by their distance from the waging war zone has boasted the Iraqi government's efforts to portray itself as an outfit of subservient civil servants bogged down by unsurmountable circumstances.

The same old tune rings out like the silent hammering of rain on tin cholera infested roofs. "They are not thieves, they are protectors of Iraq's wealth. They are not murderers, they are defenders of the poor. They are not sectarian, they are the people's choice." A much anticipated Peaceful Obama Remix is to be released soon.

In Palestine, where ghosts from a past life haunt me, the peace process industry finally succumbs to its natural fate: nothingness. Desperate attempts by Mahmoud Abbas and the rusty crust of his Palestinian Authority to sell what remains of the dignity of the Arab world fall apart under the shoes of Zionist racism. Settlers settle, F16s fire, and the Wall wages war without waste.

As we approach the sixty third year of the existence of the State of Israel, synonymous with ethnic cleansing, Apartheid, and genocide, the greatest weapon in the hands of the settler colonial state is the increasing indifference of Arab youth to Palestine.

An allergic reaction to dictator dispersed nationalist mantra and a self hating fever dashed with racism and misogyny color the skin of Arab youth. This disease will naturally vary in its intensity depending on class and proximity to death, but, nonetheless, the general theme applies.

In most parts of the Arab world, minorities are forced to make the choice between marginalized progressive elements and sellout mainstream monsters. Either you suffer with the fragmented ideals of an Arab world, united by language and liberty, respectful of everyone's rights, or you take the ethnic express straight to Washington DC, where the empire eats everyone's ethnicity equally; the passport please.

The much anticipated absence of any wide reaching progressive political project in the Arab world is the life beneath the wings of corporate vultures, stripping the land of any of its weight. Resistance is readily replaced with Rolexes, and tyranny is served hot from your nearest foreign military base.

Direct flights across the Atlantic spin the illusion that exile is nearing its end. But Toronto tortures me with its towering presence, always over my shoulders, whispering voices of my forgotten family, flashing images of a life gone by. Here, my megaphone is muted, my writing looks wrong, and my activism is not-at-all. Every day, I waft through the wonders of working for people with disabilities in a society crippled by its own misconceptions.

I rarely see the light of day, despite the determined gaze of the brilliant sun. Ironically, I know no rest in a city defined by its laziness. This is the Doha Daze. But amidst the apocalyptic drama, my heart beats against the ground, stripping everyone in sight of their uneasy slumber. Love strikes again, lifting me to the limits of life and beyond. My fate rejects defeat and brings me to the arms of a woman whose might is woven by brilliance and beauty.

Sprinkled with the surreal strength of her presence, my once convoluted vision of victory is back to where it has always been: within reach.

On a Broken Ship

2010-08-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

The first time I met her, all of my life, sat on that empty chair beside her while she spoke. Her name was Palestine, a name divinely chosen for a face so divine. She held all of my existence in the depth of her eyes.

She had moved to Toronto from Baghdad less than six months ago. A warrior blessed by the water of Tigris, she blessed the coffee shop in which we sat. Every eye and mechanical chat fought for space at the bottom of her feet, just to feel sweet, being so close to those crowns for the streets.

The way she curved the smoke filled hours of the night with her words held court on the highway resort. Small bags stuffed with sugar danced to the sensational rhythm of her tongue.

I feared losing Palestine on a conveyor belt of empty boxes. I threw my love across her seas. My eyes begged please for a taste of her lips. In awe, walls began fearing the weight of her smile.

Moments lined up themselves along the edge of the table, staring at her might. Her fingers sparkled with life in the face of winter's death. I would lose my breath if I counted all the beauty in her strength.

Iraq, personified. Time, wisdom, strength, grief, and poetry coloured her armoured cheeks. Her name was Palestine, and that is how we met.

Spoken Baghdad

2010-04-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

I wrote this piece a few years ago on a sticky smoky morning. I never performed it live. Today, I recorded it for an inspirational artist and fighter, Sundus Abdul Hadi. Please read it and let me know where it sits in your world.

--------------

What's my relationship to God?
Where was he when they killed Baghdad?
City left to rot
Perpetrators took pride in the act and no one was caught
Systematic theft of life key to the murder plot
Canadian flags were used to choke me trying to convince me that I forgot
How my home looked before its soul was wrapped up in a knot
And scribbled on dirty Dinars dripping in blood mixed with oil drops
My brothers were filling graves and babies went missing from their cots
And generations were sold to the nearest nation building shop
Where massacres would be carried out by the cops
And kids turned thugs tell you stop
And drop
your name and which religion you chose to adopt
And wrong answers will mean that you're popped
Unless of course you died from the bombs that were dropped
Or the thirteen years of sanctions that killed one point five million in what was another forgotten holocaust
And yes, Iraqis are being killed at their own cost
Meaning that they are paying for everything from American marines to a so called government that is mourning when these baby killers are lost
Or applauding soldiers lucky enough to get shot
or smart enough to gain a lesson taught
in that Fallujah resists till the last pop
And what, now they want a podium to stand on top?
And now preach their regrets for the Iraqi people
thats like telling the indigenous that liberation is gonna come from the steeple
or that Palestinians will see no evil just as long as they forget about the destroyed villages under the feet of Tel Avivers
and all these other racist ways in which we perceive
people's rights
telling Iraqis when to fight
and its ok to write just as long as you don't ignite
a gunfight in the middle of the night
to take back what's rightfully mine
i need to see each line as a piece of shrapnel in the spine
of those fighting this so called divine battle
where people are turned into cattle
waiting to be slaughtered
as the days get hotter
coffins decorate our sons and daughters
we have two of the longest sweetest rivers but we're still searching for water
we all knew that Operation Iraqi Freedom meant death
and none of us mistook any of the promises as a new breath
instead, we looked at it as an excuse for more theft
and now look what's left
what's my option
now that I've been sold in an auction
where Canada won me or hopefully lost in
but Iraq will be back as women refuse to die jumping back in your face from the graves in which they were tossed in
we must
we don't even have trust
for neighbors that share the same wind gust
it is to Syria and Amman that are future is being bussed
and Baghdad how can you be gone?
I dream of kissing you in the nights of Ramadan
with the lighter on
keep your hat tighter on
there's a military jet fighter on his way
and today he plans to take away the right to play
and the right to sway
and say what's on your mind
like hi my name is Baghdad and I love Palestine
and thieves will meet with thugs in ways that are clandestine
behind mosques
and sing songs
of how long they pretend to have struggled
not knowing all they bring is trouble and rubble
and strengthen the bubble
in which we live
Baghdad who will you forgive
will i be able to come back, stand, and live with
i am ashamed
you are brave
standing in the face of thieves and soldiers using their rifles to rape cripple and maim
and all i can do is write poetry that's lame.

Spelling Mistake

2010-03-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

I recently sent this email.

Dear Iraqi National Congress, I recently visited your website which surprisingly was uglier than Ahmed Al Chalabi himself, and I realized that you spelt the word, "liberation," wrong.

For a word that you have used repeatedly to cover your crimes against Iraqis, I would hope that you could spell it correctly. I'm not a big fan of spelling, I usually find it to be an elitist obstacle to accessible language. But since you love elitist obstacles to accessibility, I thought I would let you know.

I also recommend that you incorporate more "blood red" and "dollar green" in your website color scheme. I'm sure that would cheer up Mr. Chalabi, seeing that he got such little votes in an election he has worked so hard to rig.

Love, Ahmed Habib :)

reportback: Remembering Iraq*

2009-12-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

This is a summary of what we organized yesterday, hoping it will inspire you to organize similar events in your exile.
Yesterday, approximately twenty Iraqi youth from various backgrounds gathered in Doha to unravel the different layers of their identities in a night of “Remembering Iraq.” The event was organized by a small number of young Iraqis striving to create a space where art and culture can be used as a vehicle for discussion and expression during times when young voices seem to be muted by overbearing and destructive discussions.

The night kicked off with an outdoor screening of “Fragments in Iraq,” where the eyes of viewers followed the tremendous experiences of Mohammed, an eleven year old boy living and working in Baghdad. The film, beautifully shot with a simple digital camera, brought the larger than life sights and sounds of a city and people dealing with the aftermath of war to the makeshift theatre. Although organizers chose not to show the entirety of the film due to time constraints, the cinematic experience was a great boost for a night that would be filled with creativity and expression.

Following the film, seats were arranged in a circle to facilitate the next segment: Show and Tell. Attendees were asked to bring an item or story to share with the rest of the group as a way of allowing one’s identity to reflect on the experience of the other. It was also a tremendous learning experience for people to hear the streets and people of Iraq speak through the stories that were being told. Many of the memories told were very intimate, describing days of loss, separation, and longing. Others spoke of the beauty of Baghdad, and her ability to overcome all that which is thrown at her. Some of the participants, discussed the presence of Iraq in their lives outside the country.

By this time in the night, Baghdad was everywhere. On the tongues, in the eyes, between the hands, and all across the hearts of the group. As the story circle parted, a large piece of canvas was unrolled and participants were asked to paint a large mural to Iraq, her people, and her place in people’s consciousnesses. For two hours, people buzzed around the painting adding words, cutouts, paint strokes, tire marks, and glitter to create an embodiment of their night. The painting, left to dry overnight, will always act as a catalyst for further discussion and action.

After food, the night extended into the early hours of the morning with an open mic segment where song, dance, and poetry serenaded Iraq, and the beauty of her people. People went away feeling empowered, and ready to organize bigger and better events.

The strength of yesterday’s event doesn’t only lie in its ability to capture and share broken memories, but in its strength in paving a way for the future where Iraqi youth are active participants in the fate of their country and Iraqi communities all around the world.

This is the fall.

2009-11-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Sarah Reaburn, written to the sounds of Jadal, and dedicated to the season I love the most.

"How sweet, golden emboldened love letters crunching under her feet, nature in repeat, ushering away the heat, and living off heart beats,

this is the fall, when love meets winter in an empty hall, and dances to the sounds of hands clinging on to each other to break down walls, stars decorate the skies like disco balls, and the only thing we hear are stories of a summer-gone-by on endless broken phone calls,

this the fall, when strength comes together like kids burning down the mall, when magic forgets money because now they're selling nothing at your nearest stall, people feeling dignified like those shedding trees that stand so tall

this is the fall, where all knows all, like Maoist rebels and lonely mothers in Nepal, or lovers making thread out of trust to sew each other colorful shawls, the way the sun crawls over grassy parks and chocolate waterfalls is all-in-all just something to die for after all,

How sweet, when will they meet, like revolutionary thoughts taking all the talk to the streets, nature in repeat, when cold decorates the world with colors living and dying under her feet."

Damaged.

2009-11-07T03:03:00.000-08:00

On the train, our words held on to each other, refusing to let go. They lost themselves to the meaningless movements of other people's mechanical mouths. Letters sat in other letters' laps, small sentences got together with bigger sentences for warmth, and unspoken words took comfort in the presence of dancing eyes.

Paper reaches out to kiss the touch of my pen when I write about her. Saron. Lovers no more. Love beaten to death by exile, mutilated by denial, buried beneath a pile of broken promises. I knock on the windows of offices, and look for life in a paycheck. Broken necks and tasteless smiles come together like thieves and missing files. Lovers no more. I stand at my door, praying for rain to wash away the shame, but all remains the same, like the day Baghdad fell to her knees, but nobody came. Lovers no more. Standing on the shores of complacency, I beg the sea to take me to where I can beg and plea for forgiveness, but not for return. Once a poem is burned, all we can hope for are golden ashes to take turns in kissing the sky, and waiting for a moment to sit under our bleeding eyes.

I can never articulate the extent to which Saron made me a better person. Her version of the truth, long nights of kissing and loving through and through, brought the revolution closer to me and you. She stood on top of benches, and taught the wind how to move. She exposed the beauty of fighting diaspora through every curve and every groove. In every field of life, even those where the grass was replaced by an abundance of strife, her mind and its prowess cut through obstacles like a fearless knife. She showed me life in a light that I will never see again. I can't pretend that there are beginnings after every end. We can't even be friends, and now I spend moments like palm trees refusing to bend under the fire of Americans.

Saron, if these words are graced by the magic of your eyes, their size is no reflection of the state in which my heart lies. When love dies, the sea itself will capsize. So with no surprise, I take that which you gave me and color the skies, drawing circles and stars and planets with thick lines.

Moving Forward

The heart will never forget, even if the mind goes on its knees and begs. But like days decorating the dignity of Iraq, I won't stop. Love is there sitting on rooftops waiting for candy coated raindrops to pop.

In Doha, my world slowly unravels itself to the sounds of stubborn doors. I am thankful for the presence of love in my life. I have met the most beautiful souls, radically juxtaposing themselves against the cruelty of the falsely assembled cold. I dream of Toronto, and the songs written on the faces of my friends. But being within the reach of Bethlehem, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad heals my worldly wounds.

So many of the people here need to be described to you by me, but can't you see, writing on these pages is a tiring feat.

So with a little rest, I'll be back, like sunrises that can't wait to see Israeli soldiers getting smacked.

From Baghdad With Love.

2009-10-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

A virtual message I sent to Palestinian singer Makadi Nahhas, here is a sampling of her voice for you to hear while you read this. Thank you Yazen for making this connection.

There you are, dignified and strong, colored by the love of Iraq, decorated by the beauty of Palestine, singing on behalf of millions of silenced mothers, touching the hearts of countless dehumanized brothers, reaching for the stars with every song that you unleash, more powerful than greed and evil killing machines, inspiring exiled lovers, setting the night on fire, bringing revolution to the mind, struggling with a sea of despair, and holding on to what's slipping away from beneath our feet.

These are difficult days, defined by millions of occupied minds, with their lives resting precariously on their shoulders, standing on top of wary mountaintops, watching the destruction of their homes, filled with memories, painted with culture, and built with the blood of their fathers.

Through your music, life breathes, a voice filled with hope, imagination, desperately brushing away the pain engraved in the words that you bring.

There you are, and here I am. Falling in and out of life, watching my days without Baghdad pass by like blurry roadside scenes reaching through a blood drenched window. But, with every medium molded by the magic of Makadi, there is another day.

Thank you.

Ahmed Habib

3eediya!

2009-09-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

Written on a tipsy tight wire to the sounds of Furat Qadduori's "The Hanging Gardens."

Most of the children that day were carrying on secret conversations with the beaten down houses dotting the street. In Baghdad, our homes, palaces of pain and perseverance, are witness to everything that passes through the night, every fight, every bright light, every love at first sight.

The sounds of Mazeeqa and Tabul (trumpet and drum) permeated through the stagnant air, and perfectly articulated the story of my life. A murderous sanctions regime was at its height, and muffled sounds of misery were the only musical notes people heard. The change in rhythm was a welcome breeze, like a cool night of Basrawi watermelon worship. Iraqi dancing is filled with strength and dignity, flowing strongly like the timeless currents of her two rivers, and throwing around its anger, like the clenched fists of millions of her revolutionaries.

The looks of mourning mothers pierced through my privilege with ease that day. Smiles put together to keep entire communities from falling apart, stomped on my heart to the beat of the drums. Celebration, in conditions of extreme oppression, is undeniably, a form of resistance.

Nine years ago, Eid, in Baghdad.

So?

2009-09-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

This is written to the sounds of beating hearts

I found this note, lying on the ground, somewhere between my tired shoes, and dreamy diagrams of your kissable feet.

"This is my last post from Doha. For four months, I have sat on the shores of uncertainty, letting waves of despair beat against my bare soul. With sand in my hair, I have led on a passionate affair with the sun and its eternal source of hope. Sweetness resting on my eyes have accentuated the desperation of humid meaningless nights."

After the etching of those words into permanency, I packed up my pitiful belongings and hopped on the diaspora express, shuttling between Doha and Toronto, carefully evading the beauty of Baghdad. What was touted as a glorious return to the arms of loved ones, my ninety day escape, fizzled under mountains of stress, and took me to where I had always been, straw blowing in the wind.

The never ending saga of sorrow and despair inseparable from separation has taken a permanent spot in my emotional landscape. Once a source of defiant inspiration, longing for Saron has now morphed into a cesspool of uncertainty and fear. These are difficult days.

June 30

One Thousand and One Hundred Twenty Eight kilometers away, Baghdad still burns. A series of explosions in the last two weeks has sent a hundred or so more people to their early graves, and destroyed the lives of hundreds more. The intensity of the fire eating away at Iraq has been steady since the peak of sectarian-ized violence in 2007. At times, "improvements in security," are projected on blood stained walls by gluttonous policy makers and stubborn supporters of Iraq's occupation as a signal of success. However, the reality of destruction still looms large like the shadow cast by the Israeli Apartheid Wall on Palestinians.

Almost three months ago, a newer more dangerous trick was unleashed by the uncontested winners in the race to loot and destroy Iraq. On June 30, the Iraqi government celebrated "Dignity Day" to commemorate the supposed withdrawal of American troops from the country. For the first time in six years, the sky was lit by fireworks, as opposed to the hell unleashed by American or British warplanes. However, the forced fanfare failed to fill the void of freedom and dignity synonymous with democracy in Iraq. Homes remained covered in blood, and lovers wept longer at their state of despair.

In the security agreement signed between America and itself, Iraq will remain under the boots of malicious marines and corrupt contractors for eternity. American control of airspace, permanent military bases, and more importantly, each and every aspect of economic sovereignty, means that the occupation just rebranded itself into a state of normalcy and bitter permanency, two outcomes fiercely opposed by those with dignity in Iraq, and they are the majority.

The relationship between disparate classes remains to be the main driving force behind the political process in Iraq. A sacrilegious elite jousts with a business bourgeoisie to lay claim to the biggest slice of a rotting pie. Sectarian-ized, ethnically cleansed neighborhoods hold on to religious fervor as a means of survival, while millions of undernourished youth savor the taste of sweet dollar stuffed candy. However, history has taught us that neither the Lord nor the Landlord lead to liberty.

Thirty

Birthdays have always been mis-celebrated as achievements of individuality and personal perseverance. Mothers, the givers of life, too often become an after thought on a day that would is irrelevant if it weren't for the magic and might of maternity.

Resilient and radically gorgeous, our mothers light the streets so we can parade through them. On July 23 of this year, I celebrated three decades of being privileged enough to have a mother like mine, Janna.

Web please

In Doha, motionless minds melt in and out of my day. Smoky conversations, liquified laughs, and broken dreams hang themselves from the cracks in my wall. We are in different times, me and the rest. I am haunted by the filthy past, while others choose to rest.

My moments are mostly defined by what flies through my virtual window. Flapping through the night, see through curtains only respond to the fading fight of the fan, allowing anything into my mind.

My words are commodified, carefully combined with complacency, and put into one hundred and forty character wide coffins, before they are shipped off into the sea.

The Internet, with wit in its ways, keeps me leashed to the brightness of my screen. So mean, yet reassuring of the fact that there might be an escape, into a world of greater nothings nestled in between similar scenes of sorrow and ease.

Al-Akhbar

The Toronto International Film Festival recently awarded itself the prize for, "most recent addition to the Israeli propaganda machine."

A spotlight on Tel Aviv, funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs, found its way through my act as a journalist, and emerged as an article on Al Jazeera's Website. Dismantling the oppressive monolithic discourse of Zionism is one of the few ways of redemption for what otherwise could be a silly self serving profession.

In other cinematic news, the Doha Tribeca Film Festival sets to unveil itself in a few weeks. A press pass, and a microphone, should be sufficient to broadcast boatfuls of contradictions into your years. My gratitude to Pacifica Radio and Nora is limitless.

However, the next story I am tempted to chase is an examination of the marriage between petrodollars and football, from Manaseer to Manchester.

More

These pages are incomplete impressions, unable to fully capture the beauty of my daily collisions with inspiration. Everyday, I am uplifted and humbled by the resilience of migrant workers, muted mouths, creative queens, and heavenly hearts.

The only way to thank these titans is to write more.

Out of place.

2009-07-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

From Mississauga,

There are not enough colors bursting through the large window panes of the apartment to describe the ways in which I detest this city.

Built on stolen land, and governed by thieves, Canada's fifth largest city is no more than a showcase for settler colonialism and international dominance.

It is a land that gave me refuge from the destruction of Iraq, and offered me, through anemic government programs, the support that I needed to build my life. However, even such a remarkable transaction of dignity for dollars fails to capture the enormity of our losses, before we came here.

Refugees turned settlers, we are slowly cookie-cut, under the constance of humming, mind numbing, lamps. We watch our homes destroyed on greasy television sets. We eat our minds away in empty parking lots, sparking shots in the dark. Here, we are truly nothing.

There is a mall in this city. In fact, it is larger than the city itself. Neon lights from its operations are powerful enough to ensure a steady dose of much needed sunlight, and secure a healthy attendance at all festivities. Throughout the day, hundreds of thousands of people crawl through the marble castle, picking up prepackaged parts of their identity along the way.

There is little public space here. Plazas, or strip malls, and strip clubs, compete with fast food chains for any land left over by real estate developers. From this condominium to the next, opulent opportunists work constantly to live happily and neglect to wipe the blood off the streets. Instead of renewal and reparations, there are immigration offices and police stations.

Over policed, and under my foot, the City of Mississauga, my home for the last seventeen years, is a violent and grotesque product of our greed and racism. As such, it will never be my home.

Thirty and almost awake, Ahmed.

Letters.

2009-06-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Mama,

There is little space left on the walls. I used the last empty patch, situated squarely under the circular window, to create a stained impression of capitalism by spitting coffee over my hand. The result was a beautifully stenciled masterpiece, inspired by pre-historic art and destined for the wastelands of modernity.

Yesterday, I celebrated the end of four months, out of a seven year sentence I was handed for a crime that I did, in fact, commit. As part of the festivities, I consumed the majority of the walls of my cell in a creative feast that unleashed my most brilliant manifestation to date, a self portrait of sorts, where my eyes were neatly shaped out from the four words that have guided my life: resist, roots, ambition, and other. I was able to carefully tie in the quartet with a carefully drawn out star, placed beautifully in the middle.

I learned how to draw perfectly pointed pentagrams, only days before my arrest, on a train ride from Cairo to Baghdad, long before there was a continuous railroad connecting the two cultural giants. My sister, out of boredom and disgust at the scenes of destruction decorating our window, spent the vast majority of the voyage guiding my hand against the ceiling, carving out star after star.

An eye on each wall. I wish you could see them. Your creations recreated for much more than recreation. I am grateful for the red chalk that you managed to smuggle in during your last visit, without them, I would need to use my blood. What a monstrosity that would have been, beautifully bold blue against the pale weak aspirations of the off white walls.

I dream of seeing you in Iraq, dignified, strong, and at peace. Until then, kisses on your feet bring greetings of solidarity and respect.

Love, your son.

Read all about it.

2009-06-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here are three articles that I wrote prior to the Confederations Cup. More to come after the competition. Go Iraq! Go Egypt! Go South Africa!

Football Elite clash at the Confederations Cup
http://alternavox.net/category/bulletinbox/

Iraqi football team brings hope in troubled times
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=22365

Iraqis dream of football miracles
http://english.aljazeera.net/sport/2009/05/200951710154530848.html

From Al Iraq to Masr, with love.

2009-06-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

To the people of Egypt,

Congratulations to President Mubarak on the recent visit of American leader Barack Obama, it is the highest aspiration of any Arab dictator to be visited by the American emperor of the hour. We look forward to the day where you can relive your great revolutionary legacy and overthrow the despotic regime ravaging the might of Egypt, and Egyptians.

In Iraq, we were particularly impressed with the fact that Obama had announced his visit, and, as a result, enjoyed great fanfare accentuated by the well known hospitality of Egyptians, an ideal we all hold up with pride. When Obama came to visit us in Iraq a few months ago, he did so secretly, choosing to court the American military presence in our country that has been killing, raping, crippling, and maiming our men and women for over six years. He shook hands enthusiastically with Marines and Rangers, and whatever Spartan label that military maggots carry with them these days, and completely disregarded the millions of lives destroyed by their actions.

We were mostly disappointed that we couldn't show the new president around. In the Kadhimiya Hospital, in the northern end of Baghdad, cancer patients withering away from depleted uranium crowning the tip of American munitions, couldn't wait to kiss Obama's feet before they left this god forsaken world.

Students at decrepit schools throughout Iraq, part of an education system sold out to the World Bank, were planning to anxiously await the arrival of the new emperor and beg and plea for chalk, pencils, desks, and dignity.

Widows and internally displaced refugees had a really cute event planned for Obama, and Ms. Clinton. They had organized a mass burn-in for the new eloquent Commander in Chief. Overpriced and scarce gasoline was going to be used to set millions of bodies alight in homage to the new emperor. The theme of the soiree was, "With nothing left, why bother to live?"

Thousands of different sectors from our destroyed society were waiting in anticipation for the Barack Show. From persons disabled by war to millions of youth scouring the streets for crumbs, we had some pretty nifty ideas that we couldn't wait to put into action. One of my personal favorites was the planned "Thank you for Democracy" festival. Millions of Iraqis were planning to line the streets of Baghdad, with empty bags in hand, and ask Barack to bless them with the vomit of himself, and his entourage.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to walk in the streets of Baghdad. Maybe he was concerned about the security situation, although he always seems to suggest that things in Iraq are heading in the right direction. Maybe he was afraid of seeing the horrific effects of American war and embargo, bursting his bubble of foreign policy and the War on Terror. Or maybe, he just doesn't like Arabs, Kurds, Iraqis, Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.

So, he went to Egypt instead. We are sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused Cairo Commuters, and the frenzy this might have unleashed in your muffled media. But we are assured that brave souls, progressive fighters, and the poor, whom we share the most with, were not taken for the ride that Obama had wished he could drag them on.

His speech, we are certain, fell on millions and millions of deaf ears. His overtures to Islam, and his gestures to Peace, were met with rolling eyes and shaking fists. While the American President spoke, Israeli fighter jets taunted Palestinians living under Apartheid, and American artillery killed even more Afghans and Iraqis.

We are two peoples bound by our struggle and dignity. From Baghdad to Cairo, from Mosul to Alexandria, and from Basra to Aswan, we send our greetings of solidarity and respect. And, more importantly, we look forward to a day when we can regain, through resistance, our dignity and freedom.

Yours truly,
An Iraqi Refugee

Sound Check

2009-06-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

Another appearance on Flashpoints, KPFA Radio, in Berkeley, California. Nora Barrows Friedman and I talk about the Death of Iraq, Obama & Oil, and the Beautiful Game. Check it out and send feedback please.

http://kpfa.org/archive/id/51336

In other news...

Obama's trip to Saudi Arabia then Egypt will only entice oppressive neo-liberal elements within our society to take more and burn more.

What the fuck is the "Paris of the Middle East?" You ignorant self orientalizing elitist colonized superficial idiot. And then I kicked him.

I'd rather weep on the outside than cry on the inside. That way I can taste my tears, take a hold of my fears and kiss them to death.

Let's twitter. Now.

Articles.

2009-06-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Last Night

2009-05-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, the European football season reached its media driven climax, with a beautiful display of total tactical domination by Barcelona FC who went on to win the 2009 Champions League by beating Manchester United FC with two goals coming at each end of an hour of play. Of significance here wasn't the pair of points unleashed by Samuel Eto and Lionel Messi, but of the social dynamics intertwined into the field of play, and weaved into the uniforms of the players themselves. Like most things that happen in the West, Arab youth are impacted in ways where decisions in their own back yards fail to achieve. From discussions digging up the death of millions of Young Arabs to the fabrication of falsely fabulous fads feeding the minds of millions of Arab youth, what happens in Europe has always impacted this part of the World, mostly in ways wrapped up in the caskets catered by colonialism. In modern football, the relationship between Europa and the Arab world, or the rest of the Global south for that matter, hasn't really moved far beyond the realm of exploitation and culture colonialism. Young players are ripped out of poorer countries, or picked up from the streets of ghettoized neighborhoods in France or Germany, and made to masquerade around madly for millions of meaningless dollars. In last night's game, another dynamic was at play, that of fan allegiance eminating from the streets of Arabland. Most affluent, elite, Iraqi youth adorned their Man U jerseys in support of a team stemming from the heart of the English industry-side, manufactured and packaged perfectly for consumption by masses of income wielding yuppies. Barca, on the other hand is the only major European outfit refusing to carry corporate sponsorhip on its jersey, and is situated in the heart of Catalonia, an autonomous region in Spain once located within the great expanses of Al-Andalus. During the War on Iraq, Barca supporters yielded anti-war slogans and waved Iraqi flags around as if they were their own. In the latest Israeli massacre of Gaza, Barcelona's basketball supporters invaded the court to disrupt a game against an Israeli club, seeing no fair play in Apartheid. However, at the end of the day, Barcelona's popularity, in the Arab world in particular, could be perpetuated by the many of the same dynamics driving desire for Manchester United: consumerism, mass media, and a yearning to identify with the all-powerful. After Barcelona's win, hundreds of youth rioted in the heart of the city, showering police with bottles and petrol bombs. Now that's something to cheer for.

Last night, I performed for the first time in the Arab world. I managed to wedge myself into a lineup of graphic and visual artists sharing their work through a series of slides. My spoken word, empowered by the fires lighting the skies of Iraq and Palestine, set a beautiful contrast to the two dimensional diatribe dictating the terms of the night. My father saw me perform for the first time. He was the first one there. Followed by mother and sister. That meant the world to me. "Who knew that the way I greets you can defeats the way you want to harm me twice already bush attacked me with a warning and yet none of us were swarming none of us left despite the theft of our existence you took soccer on the streets and turned it into christmas at the mall man you got balls making kids dream of buildings that are tall never telling them how hard they'll fall if they don't stand quietly against the wall. Who knew that the sky can turn pink and the sun can sink into the earth where things of the greatest worth give birth to every verse that I disperse and find my self inside it immersed. who knew that the soul I left in Baghdad I would search for in zig zags and bodybags would be a gift to my people, their souls are not so feeble and with every evil achiever there is born a believer who through words can conceive-a viva Iraq!!! But now that the birds are back i think i saw a dove with the whole pain of the world on its back. Who knew that by placing verbs into sentences we can disturb the sentences which we are forced to serve I must flatten the curve and swerve because I don’t deserve to live off what those choose to give from this earth and that is how a man can give birth."

Last night, I wrote and recorded news bulletins for Qatar Foundation Radio, whom I'm doing some freelance work for. I waited till the midnight hour passed, to wait and absorb, edit, and regurgurate the news of the day. When I arrived, however, the work I produced never made out of my bosses' inbox. Criticisms of QF remain muted, but not for long. In the meantime, find them on the net.

Last night, I called Saron and she never picked up. Each empty ring piercing through my existence. I miss her desperately, and can't wait to celebrate summer with her magic.

Last night, one night, of many nights gone by.

From Doha, with love.

2009-05-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

How much farther can we stay apart? I started falling apart from the start. Heart to heart missing from the way my days play with my mind. Falling behind, I start to grind what's inside to find a piece of what's gone. Lonely nights like gun fights with lights in the sky, who's ready to die, when so much of life is just a pie in the sky.

The air conditioning is playing foolish games with my senses, the cold it dispenses is relentless, selfless, and wishes wellness, but renders me helpless in the face of my minutes, moments, and hours. Here, he who devours sweets and sours will gain all the powers that he needs, how much more greed can we breed, when our minds are not even freed.

There have been little developments with me, beyond rises in the levels of mercury, when will the sea come and take this boy away, one day, I say, one day.

Can you hear me?

2009-05-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

"Video killed the radio star." - The Buggles, 1979.

Here's a radio interview with me on Iraq for KPFA Pacifica Radio in San Francisco. I'm in there somewhere, like blood on a rich man's hand, or not. Please listen and send feedback.

http://kpfa.org/archive/id/50603

If there's poetry on the mind, then there's poetry on the grind, the kind that makes my mind bind itself into a book, and hang from a hook for you to see, where will I be, when the sun comes down to kiss me on my knee, maybe stuck at sea, on a sinking ship, shot in the hip, pierced from the lip, losing my life to the steady drip of blood flooding the ocean, coloring it red, so cut off my head, and let me fly instead, because deep in my heart, I'm already dead.

Lost between connections, Ahme,d!

Movement.

2009-04-26T04:59:00.000-07:00

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." —Krishnamurti

This is the quiet before storm. Nightmares nestled neatly between heavenly highs of happiness set the tone for the fattening of the beast. An infestation of cockroaches closes in on the house, as birds perched patiently on rotting trees wait for the feast of a lifetime. Crippled, shackled to the ground, I laugh my way through the morning call to prayers. Sunlight seeping through the satin curtains burns my eyes. Tomorrow has come, let the gluttony begin.

As the day unfolds itself before my wakening mind, the sight of our concrete fence humbles my senses, eating away slowly at my aspirations. With fire in my hand, I set out to burn down the city, and I scream to my mom, that brick by brick, neon light by neon fight, the world will fall.

Today, let us seek inspiration from the struggles of indigenous peoples around the world, from Turtle Island to Tamil Eelam. While some might find anger from the eating of swine or drinking of wine, I find something much more divine in examining what's happening behind the line, and what's happening in Palestine. Every stone thrown has the name of mine, just like a man who they called Argentine (Che) who to this day we can use what he had to thrive and survive but instead he's sold on shirts for five dollars. There's blood on the collars and scholars forgot that they had daughters who were forced to shake their hips after men on ships came equipped with what's hip and what's nice and forced the fact that what lies between their thighs is worth more than what lies between their eyes. My brother dies in front of my eyes and I realize that that is the prize for freedom. Easy.

Geo-poli-tricks

Sri Lankan military maggots have been relentlessly ethnically cleansing Tamils for the last few months, under the watchful eye of the world, and compliments of the training regiments of the Israeli military. Despite numerous deaths, and the manifestation of hell, the struggle for Tamil Eelam, as an independent sovereign nation, roars more colorful than a million tigers parading their might on mountain tops.

In Iraq, people daily sketch out their names on their own tombstones in their makeshift lives. A trail of crumbs decorates the escape route taken by a government of goons, gone with the loot, and never looking back. It has been four years since my eyes met Baghdad. Her beauty beats away at the burning fire, that has been raging on for decades, and is suspected to continue into eras infiniti.

Hillary Clinton, the empire's mouth, was the latest high ranking official to spit on Baghdad. She visited Iraq last week, like an abusive mother visiting her daughter on hear death bed after a good beating. Except Hillary, wife of Bill, is no mother of Baghdad or mine. She is merely a murderer masquerading slowly to the sounds of the death of Iraq.

I played close attention to the visuals of Captain Clinton's visit, as the TV set remained muted to silence the sarsarlooghiya, Iraqi for symphony of utter disrespect. I noticed that Hillary landed on Baghdad's wounded head in a military plane, re-emphasizing the fact that Iraq is still a war zone, far from the diplomatic diatribe pretending Iraq is heading towards peace.

I also realized that, as she creepily crawled off her plane, that waiting to greet her was an American diplomat, followed by an American marine, sidelining the sovereignty of "liberated" Iraq and dismissing the myth that Iraq is a nation in control of its own affairs. Hoshiyar Zibari, Iraq's "foreign minister" was there, third in line, fat, bent over, ready to serve. Hillary wasn't visiting a foreign county, Hillary was coming home.

Scores of American military personnel surrounded her arrival, with no members of the Iraqi Armed Forces to be seen, untrustworthy of the job of securing Hillary, but trustworthy of securing millions of Iraqis. Seems odd to me.

But perhaps the most disturbing visual induced by Obama's proxy visit, who did visit Iraq in person last month, to entertain the scores of American troops raping and killing away in Iraq, was the connection that I was forced to make between her and her equally nauseating partner, Bill.

For eight years, Bill Clinton, adminestered the death of 1.5 million Iraqis, during his reign as emperor of the world. His administration's policy of genocidal sanctions stripped Iraqis of their dignity and lives for dozens upon dozens of dizzy diarrhetic days. It was Bill who set the tone, the UN who performed it, and all the leaders of the Arab world who clapped and danced on top of Iraqi graves, many sized to fit children under the age of five.

I cannot sleep without mentioning the recent UN conference on racism that took place in Geneve, home to one of the West's most racist immigration policies itself. The conference has been criticized by the world's leading neo-colonial powers: the US, the UK, Canada, and the EU, for the possibility of calling Israel a racist state. Not only is Israel a racist apartheid state, but Zionism, the driving ideology behind the colonial settler project, is a vile philosophy comparable only to the world's most fascist affairs. For the UN to try and negotiate an escape route for Israel via "International Concern" is another notch in the UN's disgraceful history, from Rwanda to Srebrenica to Basra to Gaza to Tamil Eelam, and the list goes on.

Where is Saron?

In a world overflowing with the stench of oppression, there is little respite from the relentless rain of exploitation and tyranny, especially in these parts of the globe. But in my world, the separation between me and Saron, cuts through me like the bayonette of the ugliest of soldiers.

Where is she now? Her hips swaying, crushing any obstacles in her way. I miss her kisses on my face, infusing life into my worn down exterior. I miss holding her hands, as we navigte our ways into each other's diaspora. I miss her curves, carefully cutting away at the cold, leaving trails of smoke in the way. I miss her eyes, oceans of hope, dignity, and ambition. But mostly, I miss her smell, infused with the magic of kweens and peppered with the spice of soaring heights.

In a world without Saron, liberation would dangle in front of my eyes, unattainable and unwanted by me.

Just a little bit.

2009-04-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

Today's discussion is being undressed to the sounds of Flamenco infused Sufi music, an uncomfortable musical mix slowly and eerily sifting its hands through my gray hair.

There is little room for religion in my realm of inspiration. Any structure which strives to strengthen oppressive relations in our society, between men and women or rulers and their subjects, must be actively fought against and stripped of its affluent and mystifying drapery.

However, for billions of people around the world, the oceanic feeling of belonging to something greater than the materialistic mess choking our minds, offers a personal escape to purgation, a complete cleansing, an intimacy with the beauty of the skies. To them, I offer my condolences, the death of their potential continues to serve as a reminder of the limited times we live in.

In these words, however, I wash my hands of the cold calculated lifeless secularism that most critics of religion hold with a religious fervor of their own. A refusal of the culture and presence of religion, steeped in scientific development and artistic antagonism, is white supremacy of the highest quality.

For Canadians, or any other colonial settler population, to reject the notion of religion in a wholesale fashion as a regressive and underdeveloped way of life is a farcical notion, in perfect wedlock with their superiority syndrome, serenaded by self righteous notions of democracy. Capitalism, with all its trap doors and torture chambers, offers religiousness no alternative. It is a rabid fox let loose in a farm of grounded chickens, consuming and commodifying anything and anyone in its way.

It is here, where capitalism and religion monopolize our choice, that a third alternative will be born. Whether the new road will be colored with the respect for all or be polluted with the wishes of the few, remains to be a battle waging fiercely around us, in spite of our eternal lull.

Music Please

A corner stone of any religion is the symbolism assigned to the cast of characters employed in the production of stories, dramatized to encapsulate one's allegiance and energies in an oath of eternal faith and submission.

For me, the traits of many these individuals remain idealistically nestled in the stars that illuminate my night. One such figure is Sukayna, daughter of Hussein, Islam's iconic martyr, who died in the pursuit of justice, on the river banks of the Euphrates, in Karbala, one hundred kilometres southwest of Baghdad. Her perseverance in the face of oppression is a sharp contrast to the oppression in the face of perseverance, eminating from the religious elite in Kerbala today, waging war against civil society in occupied Iraq.

In tribute to her, we have named our first song, composed in the cozy confines of our living room, "The Scream of Sukayna." There are millions of Sukaynas in Iraq and throughout the world that carry their dignity and beauty with them as they fight patriarchy and violence, at times in the holiest of places. To them, I apologize for the recent signs of self pity that I have been symptomatic of. I have no right to wade in the cesspool of boredom, and present it as some major calamity, when scores of people scour the dirty floors of dirtier banks and churches for food and freedom.

The aforementioned track, a big hit in waiting, is a lively creation set to the beats of Mustafa, lifted by the guitaristic glory of Deline, and grounded by the bass lines of yours truly. Our humble ensemble is a reflection of what does truly act as an inspiration in times of great voids: being constantly surrounded by beautiful and loving people, a list topped off by my family and Saron.

Missing Mina

At times, I feel like I have lived a million lifetimes to reach the tales of today. Memories seem to come out of every corner of my soul, like water pouring through the breached walls of an ancient dam. At times, these retro-reflections can furnish the world with heavenly highs, while in other instances, looking back pierces my eyes with hot searing rusty knives. However when it comes to missing those whom you love, memories always come in flavors of two: the joy of being enriched by their presence in your life, and the pain of longing for their physical presence in your life.

One such friend is Mina, affectionately known as Monmon by the colossal circle of friends which she courts. I first met Mina in the classrooms of York, where we both studied the science of politics at a time when the words on the board leapt at us to commemorate the destruction of our beloved Iraq.

Since then, Mina has tirelessly carved out a huge palace in my heart, fitting accommodation for a modern descendant of a royal dynasty stretching from Iraq to the rest of the world. I mostly miss Mina's stubborn stances on issues that she has taught me greatly on. Coffee and tea with Mina and me seem so far at times, and as each day passes, the distance seems to expand. But, as I type these words, her distinct laugh brings a smile to my face that I have missed for weeks.

Thank you Mina.

So What's It Gonna Be?

2009-04-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Nothing much has happened since our last conversation. Our discussions, carefully crafted by characters colliding into each other's cyberspace, seem so distant, like days preceding colonialism. In Doha, time's only competition is the relentless buildup of sand on picturesque dunes tucked away neatly behind bulging buildings.

Days slowly slide into each other to perfectly complete the picture of bland nothingness comparable only to Obama's next diplomatic delight. Writing under these conditions is a gut wrenching experience where the mind wrestles to grab metaphors out of nothing to color the white bleached dishdashas (traditional Arabic robes) dotting the desert.

I am falling victim to the mind numbing silence that so loudly permeates through my soul. My thoughts revolve around the play by play developments of days gone by. The coldness of my drink seems to worm its way deeper through my mind than the state of affairs shaping the new face of global fascism looming over our lives.

It has been almost three months since I made what seems to be an ill advised move to this corner of the world. Promises of exciting employment have yet to materialize, leaving me with a sense of non-accomplishment and misdirection.

A potential trip to Baghdad could salvage the losses suffered during this time, but such a trek seems tepered by a lack of funds, and more importantly, a shortage in support from my family, who is pushed further away from the idea by the recent spike of explosions in Iraq's capital city. There is still a possibility that I will be able to lose myself, and potentially my life, in the place I love the most, but much energy will need to be spent to achieve such gains.

I feel like I am writing out the final chapters of my life, not because of the dangers dug deep in my return from diaspora, but because of the rustification of my mind. An invasive dose of Arab satellite television and an illuminating aura of individualism seem to be decorating my grave right before my eyes, and under my dirty fingernails. Also, there is always the small possibility of death that accompanies each trip I take on the lonely accessible taxi in Qatar equipped with a wobbly weary worn down electric lift that seems ready to crumble on any given day.

A series of recent pilgrimages to the hospital could also be accentuating my mortal melodrama. Seeing the faces of hundreds of broken down construction workers wandering the halls of the country's central medical facility acts as a humble reminder of the privilege we possess, always prettily posing as the nature of things.

Perhaps it is here, where the corrosion of one's mind collides with the atrophy of our physical state, that the soul truly dies. May tomorrow bring life and inspiration to those who need it the most: me.

So much more to say.

2009-03-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my fingers roamed the tops of this keyboard and unleashed another chapter into the memoirs of this pissed off Iraqi. I am angry, and reserve the right to be angry, and refuse to put on a smile so the majority of talking heads can feel more comfortable in their slow uninspiring lives, or deaths.

My anger doesn't mitigate my love, however. They are two kisses on the same eye. Nor does my anger detract from the beauty of being the son of an Iraqi mother, who needs more than one day or lifetime to celebrate or be thankful for.

Unfortunately, it has not been an extended fit of rage that has kept me away from this writing exercise. It has been work related stress of the sort that is irrelevant to the aims of the blog, and as such will remain on the design boards and rough drafts of my day to day drama.

The Weather and Saron

The tinted windows can no longer fight the sun. Sandstorms and thunder bring with them the vengeance of thousands of silent souls to beat up the baking beauty of nothingness. Things are heating up. Those are the weather conditions here in Doha.

Since when was the climate just the aggregate sum of all matters meteorological. The sunniest and sweetest of Sundays could not brighten up the gloom glazing over Gaza, nor can the most beautiful bravest bounties of color hide the red, white, and blue mural suffocating Baghdad.

Weather is inherently politicized. From the mismanagement of temperature readings in the Gulf that keep workers wilting away under the sun to the running joke called Canadian culture, where conversations are cracked into "It's too cold," or "It's too hot."

For me, my active internal life usually allows me to see and feel the weather the way I want. Although I must admit that I have spent the better half of my life being overwhelmed by the cold calculated cut throat coup of diasporic winters. Those are moments that I don't miss.

I continue to miss Saron, however, more desperately and through a greater multiplicity of ways. I follow her news like a drop of rain moving down the grooves of a leaf to its edge, before falling. I need the strength of her achievements to carry me through obstacles of which I grow more wary of everyday. To see and dream of Saron moving forward with so much strength, beauty, and wisdom through her daily life leaves me humbed, ready to fight.

From combating racism to getting accepted into a Ph.D program, Saron reasserts two undeniable and universal truths: women are much smarter than men, and without great women in our world, men would rot, cigarettes in hand.

Mighty Manama

I recently made the mistake of taking another flight out of the Doha International Airport, leading contender for the world's most anti-access airhub in the world. But it was the best mistake I ever made, as the destination of my flight was Manama.

After a heated discussion with an Air Bahrain ground crew member about the fact that I had to pay twice as much for my ticket in order to take my wheelchair on board, my friends and I quickly lept over the Gulf in the region's newest budget conscious carrier.

I have been to Manama before, once, five years ago, as a soccer fan thirsty to see the Iraqi football team, a dying symbol of Iraqi unity in the face of gunfire and money. I remember seeing Baghdad in the streets of Bahrain, in the soccer fields of dirt, the proud nakhal (Iraqi-Arabic for date palm trees), but mostly in the wisdom and strength of its people.

My second visit, which came days ago, sealed the deal, a festering love affair with a quiet island, easy to forget, unless you are the 5th US Naval Fleet, which likes to make Manama its home. Despite the struggle waged by Bahrainis for more human rights, higher standards of living, and for a constitutional end to their much wealthier monarchy, Bahrain still suffers from the ills of greed and apathy, although with much less intensity.

I like Manama, capital of Bahrain. I like a place in the Gulf where tires and the rest are burnt to light the streets. I like a place in the Gulf where the site of a citizenship yielding local brings comfort to your heart and not a painful reminder of who and what you are. I like Bahrain, and want to move there. I am grateful to all those that were a part of my trip, despite many of them moaning and groaning along the way.

Home is where the art is.

Here in Doha, there is much of the same lame mind game. The long standing quest for the mighty dollar leaves little room for any mental activity outside of making and showing off your money. However, there are pockets of hope that peep through like light fighting its way past perferated clothing.

To the credit of some of this country's leadership, there are tremendous efforts being made in the areas of culture and education. Last week, I attended a global art forum at the Museum of Islamic Art, based on an invite that I received from a close friend, W. W-asan is a dedicated and energetic curator of Qatar's Museum of Modern Art. Her talent status and stature often have her confused via patriarchy for a man by those that haven't met her.

I am wary of Art, when it is detached from the harsh realities dancing outside the gallery door, or when Art is no more than decorations trying to cover up faces of misery. But, the discussion at hand, at the Global Art Forum, was honest, provoking, and necessary in a world where Arab art is sold faster and cheaper than recently-thawed hamburgers under golden gates.

Coming to life from the calm seaside shores of Doha, the Museum emerges and introduces itself as uninviting monumentally square building devoid of life and culture. From the distance, that is. My visit last week, however, made me realize that the Museum was in fact a delicately designed treasure box holding on to glories and stories of the past, and offering the people in Qatar, a chance to create for the future.

The museum might have been built by large institutions with larger budgets, but it is being kept alive by the passion of young Arabs, mostly women, and their drive to show the world Arab Art with no strings attached.

I have to confess that my initial interaction with the Doha Art/Museum scene was heavily influenced by my skepticism regarding cultural activies in the Gulf, although I have always been a fan of the Doha Song Festival, and the attempts it makes to perserve traditional music. However, fallic flops like the Louvre in Abu Dhabi seem to be grounded in the same race to fame that relentlessly factors in to decision making, as opposed to considerations like relevance, accessibility, originality, or sustainability.

The efforts being brought forward by these young people, and the energy in their eyes go a long way in making Doha a liveable city for all. The Museum is open 6 days a week, except Tuesdays, and offers free admission to all.

Other matters on the mind.

There is much to say about media, in all its forms, but I will hold off on making comments that could seal my fate as the world's most unsuccessful journalist. I did manage, with the help of those that I interviewed, to get another article on Al Jazeera's website. This time, my coverage focuses on the supposed withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

There is much to say about football, the people's sport, but I will hold off until my first article in Arabic is published about the Death of Iraqi Football. Iraq's exit from the 2010 World Cup has left a taste in my mouth more bitter than dirty dinars dripping with oil and blood. In the meantime, my football fix will come in the form of watching European giants stutter along their quest to merchandising greatness. Man U's latest loss to not-s0-Egyptian owned Fulham was described accurately by my friend Hani as "a spoiled kid throwing an anihilist tantrum."

There is much to say about love, but I will pour my emotions into the sea of sorrow that I swim in everyday, everynight, and about all other times that I can think of. Saron recently lambasted me for my mopey masquerade, and she told me to stop it. So I have stopped, I think.

There is much to say about Iraq, but I will wait until I visit it next month, and bury my face into its worries. I yearn for the tastes, smells, sounds and sights of Baghdad, with all its magic and might.

There is much to say about Palestine, but I will let the actions of fellow anti-Apartheid activists set the tone for Israel's demise. My open invitation to Bethlehem won't last forever, and neither will my separation from the land that has given me the most.

In the end, whatever I say, and how ever I say it, will mean nothing unless it reverbates into the consciousness of those that read.

Fancy words are just sugar melting in tea, what matters is the cleanliness of the water.

Tiffin with love.

2009-03-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

NOTE: In my response, I mention Frank Cappadocia as the sexist in question, near the end of the letter. That was a mistake, it was Brian Poser.

Hello, here's Tiffin's response, and then my reply. Enjoy
Dear Mr. Habib:

Of course I remember you! I also want to congratulate you on your new career with Al Jazeera. It is always great to hear how York alumni are advancing in their careers and how York may have played some part.

With regard to the latest event in Vari Hall you are incorrect in your assumptions. As an alumnus, and a former participant in many rallys, you know that the noise from demonstrations can have a deleterious effect on classes on the perimeter of Vari Hall.

You should also recognize that York is a strong believer in upholding the rights of freedom of expression, as evidenced by your personal experience last year when the usual business of Senate was disrupted by a demonstration. You and your group were invited to speak with the President immediately following the Senate meeting and there were no negative consequences for you or any other participant.

York University's Senate has affirmed that no individual or group of individuals shall cause by action, threat or otherwise, a disturbance that obstructs any academic activity organized by the university or its units. The Senate Policy on Disruptive/Harassing Behaviour goes on to state:

York is committed to policies that support the teaching and learning of controversial subject matter. Students and instructors are, however, expected to maintain a teaching and learning environment that is physically safe and conducive to effective teaching and learning for all concerned, and to be civil and respectful at all times within the learning environment, including within classrooms, laboratories, libraries, study halls and other places where academic activities are conducted and in areas proximate to those where academic activities are taking place.

Following the rally in Vari Hall I and others received numerous complaints from both faculty and students whose classes were disrupted by the level of noise. As I'm sure you are aware, this is a very stressful time for undergraduate students as they attempt to complete their fall term courses and prepare for examinations during the remediation period. It is essential that the academic mission of the university proceed without disruption in fairness to all students.

I should also note that prior to the rally I and the President specifically requested in a meeting with organizing representatives that those involved make every effort possible to avoid amplification devices and noise in order to show respect for their fellow students attending class on the perimeter of Vari Hall.

From the tone of your note to me I feel that you may not believe me, but the decisions communicated to those involved in the rally are based solely on the abrogation of the Senate policy on academic disruption caused by the noise generated by the rally participants. The purpose of the rally had no bearing on my decisions regarding the SAIA organization.

Once again congratulations on your new career in journalism and I look forward to seeing your fair and balanced reporting.

Yours truly,

Robert Tiffin
Vice-President Students

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Dear VP Tiffin,

I am glad that you took time to respond to my letter so quickly. Getting a same day response and not through some system of generic response created on the 9th floor is quite uncharacteristic for York's administration.

Your reply could have helped to break the popular belief held by most that York is entirely run by robotic registrars responding readily to the whims of corporate donors and the political elite, including the mighty Israeli lobby of course. However, the content of your letter, and your evasiveness only reassures students and alumni of such notions held against you.

On my end, I have waited a few days to reply to you to see if the overwhelming support that Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) has received from faculty and community members would have an impact on your shameful decision. However, to my dismay, and on the eve of Israeli Apartheid Week, you still cling on to your draconian and unilateral verdict against SAIA.

I assure you, however, that the 5th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week, taking place in 25 cities across the world, will make its way to York. This year, Toronto will host notable speakers including Naomi Klein, Omar Barghouti, and Ronnie Kasrils, a former minister in the post-Apartheid South African government.

I wonder if you also consider Mr. Kasrils a radical anti-Semite, the view held by Israeli supporters against all those that criticize its Apartheid practices? And your support for one system of Apartheid begs the question if you were sympathetic to the brutal system of Apartheid in South Africa as well?

There will also be members of the York community, both students and faculty, participating in the Week. These are brave individuals refusing to bow down to the climate of fear and repression that you and your administration have carefully fostered throughout the years.

The letter you sent me does nothing to address the issue at hand, which is your persecution of anti-Apartheid activists and how this relates to the systematic process of defending Israeli Apartheid by University administrators across the province.

I would like to refer you, for example, to a meeting that was arranged between Frank Cappadocia, Director of Student Community & Leadership Development at York, and Phil Wood and Jim Delaney, his colleagues at McMaster University and University of Toronto respectively. The trio, in addition to other experts on student affairs from across the province, were meeting, in the words of Mr. Wood, "to have some discussion about these groups and the plans they have for holding Israeli Apartheid Week next March."

In the email, which I have attached as a .pdf file,York's own Mr. Capadoccia was asked to lead the discussion, I assume, because of his intimate knowledge on repressing student activism. The campuses that were set to be hosting the Week were described as, "targets", in the aforementioned correspondence.

Why is it that universities need to meet and coordinate responses to Israeli Apartheid Week? Have members from your office met with other universities to see why most automatic door openers on campus don't work or why more and more students won't be able to go to university due to increasing tuition fees? The reasons behind the inter-campus collusion are clear.

Since the alleged meeting, held several months ago, campuses across the province, have all taken coordinated steps to try and stop Israeli Apartheid Week from taking place on their campus. The University of Ottawa and Carleton took the easy and cowardly route of banning the poster used to advertise for the Week.

The banned poster is a creative and accurate depiction of the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza. It shows an assault helicopter, labelled Israel, firing a rocket at a Palestinian child. During Israel's assault, more than 480 children were killed, out of 1,300 Palestinians. Schools and hospitals were also targeted. Your administration, of course, shamefully refused to condemn any of Israel's violence. Nonetheless, I have attached a copy of the poster and with it a small step towards redemption, only if you choose to hang it in your office of course.

At York, instead of banning the poster, I understand that caretakers have been instructed by your office to take it down immediately, sometimes minutes after students put them up in designated postering areas. Forcing poor people working under your mercy to be part of the oppression of other poor people around the world must give you a particular sense of achievement and satisfaction. Shame on you.

Shame on you for trying to use the Student Code of Conduct, a laughable and bankrupt policy, to politically persecute student activists.

Your use of the Student Code of Conduct for such purposes is in line with the efforts of pro-Israel groups to pressure York to do so.

As early as December 2008, the University Outreach Committee, an arm of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy was providing resources and pressure to help students and administrators in, what they called it, "upholding the code."

And only days ago, B'nai Brith, a pro-Israel group in Canada, issued a triumphant press release, on February 27, after meeting with York administrators to encourage the University to use the Code to ban SAIA prior to the launch of Israeli Apartheid Week.

I'm sure you were at the meeting, all nods and smiles, ready to serve.

However, I am afraid that your latest attempt to silence anti-Apartheid activists, is in itself, a violation of the Code. There were no copies of the alleged complaints forwarded to SAIA, nor was there a meeting held to discuss the incident.

In essence, SAIA was found guilty with no judicial process whatsoever and without being given an opportunity to defend itself. By denying your own students these fundamental rights, it seems that you want York to get close to Israeli Apartheid in ways even more hurtful than I anticipated. Shame on you.

You imposed the maximum penalty, a $1,000 fine and a 30-day suspension, on a grassroots student driven group with no operating budget, in the hopes of breaking its back.

As for the $250 fine against Hala Farah, a Palestinian refugee from Gaza, she is still waiting to hear your apology and immediate retraction of the intimidation you have subjected her to.

I also understand that other students are now being targeted by the police for their involvement in anti-Apartheid activism on campus. It is your responsibility to immediately contact the Toronto Police Services and let them know that they are not welcome to go on campus and criminalize free speech and dissent at the university, even if the points of view expressed are contradictory to those held by you or the police.

In 2005, almost 35 police chiefs went on a mission to Israel a few years ago at the expense of the Israel lobby, and they have been intimidating Palestinians and their supporters more intensely ever since. This is the same police force your administration called on January 20, 2004 to beat up your own students at a peaceful rally against York's role in the destruction of another society, my native Iraq.

I am also becoming aware of the plans being made by the Jewish Defense League, a recognized hate group convicted of orchestrating terrorist attacks against Arabs in the United States and Palestine, to come and intimidate anti-Apartheid activists at York.

There is no doubt that you will afford them all the space and comfort to do so. However, it is unacceptable for the University to allow racist thugs like the JDL to come and bully your own students, especially when several complaints have been made by female activists about the sexual harassment they are subjected to, on a daily basis, by supporters of Israel. As with regards to those complaints made by several young women, I have yet to see one fine or press release issued by your office condemning those despicable acts.

The connections between you or your office and the suppression of anti-Apartheid activism are many and well documented. And all you could do in your response, was talk to me about how classes were disturbed for one hour or less.

In your response, you also patronized me and congratulated me for my new career with Al Jazeera, which I have yet to start. I am skeptical about the genuineness of your comments, since I remember how you and your administrative puppets, particularly Mr. Capadoccia tried to brand me as a radical, which I consider a compliment in times of great complacency, and as someone whom you couldn't wait to see leave the confines of the campus.

I remember Mr. Capadoccia very well from my time in the student union. In particular, I recall when he was summoned to our office to discuss his behavior at a meeting regarding postering on campus, early in our term. A female member of our executive found his conduct quite sexist and offensive, forcing him to apologize in front of executive members from the student union and Cynthia Summers, ironically the infamous author of the Code herself.

There is still a chance for you to avoid the trash can of history. You can retract the fines and suspension, and admit that they were made under duress from pro-Israel groups. Everyone around the world knows about the ruthlessness of Israel and its supporters, and, as such, everyone will believe you.

However, I suspect that you will continue on your path of racism and repression, two characteristics most desired by the State of Israel and its supporters. In that sense, you are heading in the right direction.

As for millions of students of color, women, persons with disabilities, refugees, and marginalized people from all over the world who are watching the debacle at York unfold, or have the misfortune of being victims of your actions themselves, they will always see York as a place not befitting of their attendance or respect.

Peace, Ahmed Habib

Baghdad, Saif, and Ali.

2009-02-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

This entry is being written to the sounds of AloBaghdad Radio, please support them.

I realized that I can only write when I'm angry and feeling isolated, otherwise my words are just fluff thrown in the face of falsely uplifting winds. In that sense, Doha could be the perfect place for this blog to rise up from, as it is a city always ready to depress and destroy me.

However, I have to realize that these are still ultimately privileged confines, and no mental anguish of mine can equate the death and destruction facing millions of people in Iraq, or Palestine, or any other part of the world struggling to come out from under the boots of colonialism. My stress is also incomparable to the dehumanization and abuse facing hundreds of thousands of migrant workers that clean and build the plush aestheticism pretending to be culture in these parts of the world.

Baghdad

My dreams are regularly graced with the presence of Baghdad and all her majesty. All the details are there. The proud tired faces of her residents, the talking walls of magical homes with all their stories and dirty secrets, and the struggling river Tigris as it winds through the city, carefully tending to her wounds, and consoling her broken soul.

Baghdad is a city, despite being left alone with her legs forced wide open by thousands of her relocating residents, still gives strength without prejudice and discrimination. Iraqis, around the world, and whether they know it or not, are fed dignity and respect every day by the city many can't wait to forget. As a mother mourning the murder of her soul, Baghdad becomes more vigilant in her love for all those that drank from her hands, no matter how hard they have tried to sell her off, burn her, or cover up the traces of her love by white washing themselves with hype and pipe dreams.

Despite my unwavering support for Baghdad, including organizing to oppose the killing and torture of the city I love the most, I am still ashamed to revert to her flowery feet, even if I'm to return and beg for forgiveness. How will she welcome me? Won't she ask me where I have been during the most difficult of days? Will she laugh at the effect of my attempts to stand in the way of those trying to pillage her pride? If I know anything about Baghdad, I know that she will welcome me right into the expanding basateen (groves) of her beauty.

Ali & Saif

But at times, I wish Baghdad was harsher with her citizens, especially those that continue to flaunt her failures as signs of accomplishment and liberation. There are two such characters here, despite their good intentions and complete irrelevancy to the political developments in Iraq, who upset me the most with their reactionary repulsive rants. They are Ali and Saif, two friends of mine, who need to be checked, or chucked.

Yesterday, in the parking lot of one Doha's desperate hotels, and just outside an American fast food chain, of which I shamefully ate not only once, but twice, a conversation took place. A fitting place for some selling out to take place, and Ali and Saif took advantage of the surroundings to do so with flying colors.

They were telling me their thoughts on Palestine, of which I don't think they can name three cities, not including Tel Aviv ofcourse. They were telling me how the Palestinians deserve what they got, and that I support Palestine because I didn't live in Baghdad, missing out on how Palestinians got treated better by Saddam than most Iraqis. They are referring to the tokenistic handouts given by Saddam to Palestinians, either in the form of free housing or admission to Iraqi universities. Palestinian support for Saddam is clouded, corrupt, and confused.

At best, their analysis is infantile and reactionary, not taking into account the systems of global power at play, that have kept Palestinins and Iraqis living under the feet of Israel and Saddam, as they worked hand in hand, regarldess of their intentions, to destroy the Arab world, and in particular, its youth. The former with bullets and bombs, and the latter with blazing bouts of empty promises, torture, and futures full of nothing.

I am not surprised by their ignorance, seeing the putrid social class from which they emerge, elite, educated and eager to earn. However, I am most disappointed because they both show signs of progressive thought on other issues, less clouded with emotion and their daddies' commentary, so I choose not to give up on them, nor on my role, to talk to youth and get them to move before they are moved on themselves.

In the meantime, and until next time, I will go to respond to Tiffin's reply.

In response.

2009-02-25T07:27:00.000-08:00

After a peaceful rally and demonstration was held by Students Against Israel Apartheid on February 12, the York University administration banned the student group without trial or jury. This act of intimidation comes within a systemic response from many universities that are trying to scare students from holding Israeli Apartheid Week on their campuses. I decided to write Vice President of Students Robert J. Tiffin (rjtiffin@yorku.ca) a letter telling him what I thought of his decision to suspend the group for thirty days, fine it $1,000, and to fine a Palestinian student from Gaza another $250 for her role in organizing the demonstration:

Dear VP Tiffin,

My name is Ahmed Habib, I am an alumnus of York University and a former Vice President at the York Federation of Students. I dare you to read this letter, and not throw it away after realizing who it is from.

When I graduated, and in front of my traveling family, former YU President Lorna Marsden refused to shake my hand for what I can only assume to be my political activism at Keele Campus.

I am certain that you also remember me for the countless times that you tried to intimidate me by sending me warning letters about holding events in Vari Hall, and by allowing the dehumanization by racist students against me and others to go unpunished.

It is with no surprise then, that I read your latest assault on members of SAIA for exercising their democratic right in the face of troubling complicity between York University and the racist Apartheid ways of the state of Israel.

I know that you will respond to me and tell me that York is neutral in what you like to term the "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict. However, I am certain that even for a man of your political sleaze, you do not believe a word of that argument.

I refer you to the latest bridge being built between York and Apartheid Israel, a new course being offered on campus: HUMA 4821: Culture, Society and Values in Israel.

The objection here isn't the nature of the course per se, although Zionism is internationally recognized as racism, but the fact that it is being taught by a former Cabinet member of former Israeli PM Menachim Begin.

Amongst Begin's many accomplishments during his reign was the illegal occupation of Lebanon in 1982, which caused the death of more than 10,000 civilians, including the atrocities committed in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres.

Perhaps, the new course could be offered free of charge to Shahira Abu Roudeina, one of the survivors of that fateful day when militias under the watchful eyes of Ariel Sharon and Menachim Begin carried out despicable acts including disemboweling pregnant women and cutting off the heads of their unborn babies. Here is part of Ms. Abu Rudeina's testimony as part of the legal case launched in Belgium to indict Israeli officials:

"On Thursday 15 September, after sunset, the Israeli air force carried out some raids against us. We lived in the western part of the camp, and when the shelling started drawing nearer, we – my husband, my children and I – went to my parents’ home at the entrance of the camp, to see where they wanted to go. But we all stayed at my parents’ house until 7 pm, at which time, seeing as the shelling kept intensifying, my sister went to see what was happening outside. They immediately shot at her. She shouted, “Daddy!” and didn’t come back. Hearing her cry, my father went out. He saw her and said, “Our little girl is dead.” Then they shot at him, and he fell. The whole camp was lit up by light flares, and none of us could go outside. We stayed locked in like that until 2 am. Then we understood that there had been a massacre. "

I wonder if Professor Arye Naor will be discussing these moments in class, or if he will just use the academic space granted to him by you to whitewash the crimes he was complicit in.

Note that Ariel Sharon was invited to speak in Canada by none other than York University's own fundraising genius Julia Koschitzky. The connections between York and Israeli crimes are many and disgusting, I am sure you know about and uphold many of them willingly.

As for your suggested disciplinary actions against SAIA, I was distressed to see that they are completely in line with the racist attempts of Zionist organizations to silence anti-Apartheid activism on campuses worldwide. I was utterly disgusted by your cheeky suggestion to Hala Farah to write a letter of public apology to the York community for disturbing classes.

You should apologize for supporting the killing of her family, for supporting those that deny her the right to return home, and you definitely should apologize for trying to intimidate her along the classic lines of anti-Arab racism.

I remember an incident at a meeting between us where you erupted in anger because I kept calling you, "VP Tiffin" as opposed to "Rob". You suggested that by addressing you with the former I was dehumanizing you.

By continuing the display of racism and intimidation that will form your legacy at York, you have proven that you are neither interested in humanity, nor are you fit to deal with humans destroyed by racist regimes like Israel.

It is time you step down. You will always be remembered as a tool for supporting Apartheid, and for ignoring pressing issues on campus like safety and accessibility so you can dedicate the bulk of your energies to supporting Israel.

As well, please say hi to President Shoukri, who apparently likes to smear my reputation cowardly when I'm not there, and your assistant Sylvia Schippke, who learned how to deal with students during her reign at Boeing, one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers.

Disgusted, Ahmed Habib

---- I will be back to post more tomorrow.

A bit More.

2009-02-19T06:10:00.000-08:00

I can't write when people are around, in this blog or anywhere else.

There is an intense vulnerability that is exposed when thoughts are put into words. It is an agonizing process of extracting hope from death, and I am still uncomfortable sharing this exposing exercise with the eyes of onlookers. As such, my blog has remained empty the last few days to make way for the hordes of friends and loved ones that have completed my circle.

Despite my virtual return, I feel that there are still so many things in my heart that I can not share. They have been building up with anxiety and reflection for years, like the dust that collects on the backs of ancient graves. These deeply buried secrets are heavy at times, feeling like weights chained to my feet. But at times, they offer me a sense of solitude and sanctuary that I yearn for in a world filled with intense invasive incursions into my soul.

My first loves, because as we grow, we fall in love for the first time over and over again. My weakest moments of greed, lust, privilege, and self absorption. My most fear filled fallouts, shaken by the scorn of an angry loved one, or beaten down by the brutality of relentless destruction. My lowest moments of self destruction, escapism, and disregard for the world around me, all remain hidden like scars under bursting bangs of hair.

I have difficulty serving these items in my daily dose of diasporic diatribe. I choose to hold on to these memories, because, they are like the beautiful rust on an aging piece of jewelery, left somewhere under my grandmother's feet. In a world so perversely shaped by individualism, I would rather have these as my possessions than the meaningless trophies that people spend so much of their energy to pursue. I refuse to latch on to the material gains close to so many people's plastic hearts. I have no illusions about how our wealth is built on the back of poor voiceless people around the world.

Here in Doha, and throughout the capitalist West, cars are extensions of men's flailing confidence in their own driving abilities. Technological toys tantamount to total trash tease their tastes, and give them a sense of fake accomplishment. Here in Doha, and throughout the Gulf, you are judged by what you wear, and how you treat your hair. And not by what and where you work, and how you treat your maid.

Expression

There is sporadic graffiti throughout Do-ha. In Toronto, graffiti, one of the four elements of Hip Hop, and a complex art form that is responsive to the misery of marginalized communities, is considered a crime. Because, in Toronto, crimes are judged not by their impact on people, but by their effect on property and matters material. Broken windows are considered to be more of a serious offense than broken bones. As such, our communities might be void of vandals, but are still rife with wife beaters and racist cops.

Just outside the main gate to our house, there is a huge map of India sketched onto an unfinished wall with a thick Cross placed in the middle of the drawing. I suspect it is our neighbor, an Anglican priest from Mumbai, recently arrived, grappling with the rawness of corporate Islam, the region's official religion, that decorated the design. I wonder what his reaction will be to Islamic scrawlings on the wall of his home in India or here. I would test the young priest, but religion is a backwards backbreaking affair, infested with mysogyny and elitism, no matter what stripe your faith is.

Just around the corner, the word 'sex' is spray painted hastily against the heated concrete walls of our gated community. It is a word that you see written everywhere. Young men, uncertain of how to deal with their hormonal hysteria, resort to cheap thrills on the net or by flicking through the parade of porn populating satellite programming. Sex, or just the act of love here, and throughout the world, is tempered largely by status and style, as opposed to being the product of trusts, times, and total encapsulation into one another's worlds.

There was a beautiful piece of grafitti, around the corner, that had two flags, one Palestinian and the other Croatian, embracing each other, with the words, "Together" tagged underneath them. But that has since been consumed by the tidal of wave of construction defining Do-ha, and the Khaleej on which it sits.

Driving through the city, I noticed some Arabic graffiti with the word Gaza in it, hastily painted over to cover up, I assume, any dissent or reference to the struggle of oppressed people, no matter where they are. Other graffiti gems that I gazed over included, "Za3tar", "Abu Sameem", and a slew of randon names put up by people desperate for expression and identity in a world not accepting of both.

References to musical bands are also common. I have seen, "Lamb of God" , "Daft Punk" , "Tupac" , and "System of a Down" scribbled on different walls and fences. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether this sort of grab for culture is conducive to change, or is part in parcel of the wave of Americanization sweeping through the Arab world. But, having that said, I identify more with the art of Tupac, Lamb, and System than with the empty echos of Arabic pop music attacking our minds and ears.

But, the most surprising and refreshing discovery I have made throughout my visits over the years, has been a small forgetabble alleyway just around the corner from my house. It is a route commonly taken by students on their way to some highly esteemed private schools in the city. On each side of the tight walkway, walls are covered with Anti-American sentiment, a simmering but sedated emotion running through the veins of young people in the global South. Everything from expletives against the USA to more complex demands from disenfranchised kids decorate the otherwise boring route to nowhere.

Here in Doha, these writings on the wall are my closest friends. Unlike the elite, these etchings are desperate, isolated, and critical of their surroundings. Unlike the rich, the smatterings of graffiti decorating the drama, are genuine and striving for truth. I must admit, that my eyes see the scribbles on the wall in a bigger presence than in which they really exist. But if I follow the neon lights and women in tights, then I will be part of the beast I fear the most: complicity.

Until next time, stay strong like Iraqi mothers.

Here and now.

2009-02-18T00:13:00.000-08:00

I always like to visualize my stress. Crumbling mountains into the sea or agonizing sweaty overweight sit ups come to my mind when my mind starts to wrestle with itself. Seeing the stress allows me to think of quick and clever escape routes to tranquility, no matter how artificial or temporary these getaways may be.

In many ways, I love stress. In Do-ha, stress keeps you awake and warm under the relentless and aggressive tactics of air conditioning units and their operators. In Do-ha, stress keeps you awake and alert in the face of mind numbing innuendo spewing from loud TV sets and even louder TV pets: the viewers.

But my stress isn't limited to my immediate locale. It extends in a far reaching drain-bow that spans several cities and skips numerous time zones. For the purposes of strength and agility, I will limit my reflections to the city I hate to love: Toronto.

Saron

The most feverish news coming out of the Tee-dot (alias for Toronto) is how much I miss my other half: Saron. There are few words in the world that can describe how much I love her, and even worse, there are much less words to describe how lonely I am without her.

For anyone who has met Saron, there is little that I can say about how much of a beautiful kween she is, as I'm sure most of you are either in love, or in admiration, with her as well. For those that haven't met her, I will try to to use my virtual canvas to describe her, knowing there is no literary movment in the English language that can capture all of her essence.

Saron, or Susu, or Tumtumo, is a world of strength and dignity held together by a beauty hand crafted by Habasha gods. She is a woman who has smashed every obstacle, and, along the way, opened up spaces for the most marginalized of youth to seek their own liberation. She is a mental and spiritual mountain towering above oppression, and in return, acting as a beacon for her community and beyond to guide voiceless hordes of youth right into the halls of power.

Despite all her heavenly traits, Saron is a humble down to earth girl that has a heart bigger than all of the world and its neighbors. Her heart beats step by step with the pace of progress made by others, and when they stop moving forward, her heart pauses to resist. She is gracious and generous with her love and concern, and is universal in her appreciation for community and belonging.

I have never known a love like this. A kiss on her cheek sends me straight into the bluest and clearest seas of ecstasy, where I am content to live the rest of my life. I see Baghdad in her eyes and here the gunfire of freedom fighters with every word that she speaks. I lose myself in her hair, a crown woven from fire, perfectly nestled on the cutest of heads. I exist off her dreams and die with every one of her disappointments. She inspires me to fight, write, and light the skies on fire. She holds my head strongly against the ground, where the sounds of her footsteps sound like knocks on the gateways to life.

I have never known separation to be so agonizing. I am haunted by her absence, even when I am surrounded by dozens of friends. I ache for her touch, yearn for her voice in every waking moment of my daze. It is for her that I venture here to start this career, whatever it may bring. I want to build her a palace from Iraqi water and Ethiopian clay, and spend my days braiding her hair, and washing her feet. But, as I stare at this screen, with only me and my tears separating me from these words, I am sobered by the distance between us.

I am thankful for her patience, and all her support. But I am concious of where I may have to abort my mission. No money or status in the world could equal a minute of being lost in her love. Even if I tried, I can only survive without my heart for so long, seeing I left it with her, somewhere in her back pocket, before I left.

This is stress not made of impatience and greed. This is stress that breaks my bones and burns my eyes. I miss Saron, and hope you can tell her that Ahmed is the luckiest boy from Baghdad. Full Stop.

Alma Matters

No matter how far I travel, I can never wander far enough to escape the day to day details of York. I graduated from the third largest university in Canada several years ago, but the stench of Zionism which is synonymous with York U keeps bringing me back. How can I disregard my priviledge as a student, or alumni, to fight against support for Israel, when I know silence means complicity in filling Palestinian graves with dead babies.

York, since I met it, has been an institutional hub for upholding the racist Apartheid criminal ways of the world's most notorious hijack state: Israel. In the weeks that I have been gone, my friends, or more accurately, my diasporic family, have continued to organize for a Boycott of Israeli Universities right in the heart of York's Zionist infestation.

I gain so much strength from their courage to face the racist mysogynistic bullying tactics of spoiled kindergarten fascists acting in the name of Hillel or the Hasbara fellowship. I know that many of these racist Zionist students have served in the Israeli army, perversely named a Defence Force, and that deep in their hearts, they wish they can physically degrade Palestinian students and their supporters.

I look forward to this year's Israeli Apartheid Week, an educational and organizing campaign, now held in 4o+ cities across the world. I am honored to know that it started in Toronto, and that it now constitutes a serious threat to the monolithic mass of lies emerging out of Israeli propogandists that their country is a democracy. Israel is only a democracy for the racist settlers that claim their home on the bodies of dead Palestinian villages, whether they are in Tel Aviv or Hebron.

My postings will bring you updates of the Week, set to take place between March 1 and March 9. Please visit their website: http://apartheidweek.org for more information.

The Gulf

I think it's fitting that the name of the area I live in can also mean a large abyss between two people or groups. Not only is there a gulf between me and Saron's feet, but there is a Gulf between me and the people I meet here.

I am the luckiest boy from Baghdad not only for falling in the hands of a perfect love, but also for the open ended amount of love and support I get from my beautiful family. Hadeel, my sister and soulmate, is an ocean of love and support. Aseel, my other sister and role model, despite her diasporic sentence in New Jersey, always makes me feel like I am watched over and accounted for in these heavy seas of exile. As for my parents, Kassim and Jinan, I have never seen parents more loving and caring. To them, I owe everything, and I dedicate anything that I have done, or will ever do.

On Censorship

Although these blog posts are supposed to be open windows into the soul of a pissed off Iraqi, I must warn my readers of filters in place. There are three kinds of censorship at play here: internal, external, and just simple absent mindedness.

Internally, I limit my outbursts at people as to not lose their friendship. There is something about people's ego that makes written criticisms even harder to accept. Maybe it is because the critique can be read over and over again, as opposed to a verbal lashing that eventually melts into the cocophony of nothingess. But, do not fear, I would rather have no friends, than be chummy with people whose attitudes and beliefs disgust me.

Externally, I am concious of my surroundings and the effect that my words could have on the futures of loved ones around the world. For all those silenced depressed and marginalized voices in the Gulf, you know what I mean.

Absent mindedness is an unavoidable symptom of stress, and so I apologize for missing out on moments that have deep impacts on my soul.

After all, these words are only descriptors for a language only understood by my heart and mind.

Tomorrow, we meet my friends in Qatar.

Today and Tomorrow

2009-02-17T06:18:00.000-08:00

Today's post is tomorrow's post. Fatigue victimized the rant.

here and there

2009-02-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

It's been two weeks since I packed up my remains and boarded an Emirates Airlines flight straight to do-buy. Although fourteen days have passed since my escape from Toronto, my heart and mind have remained stuck somewhere along the 10,000+ km route that I took to end up right here in the newest Khaleeji city-to-be: doha.

The Flight

As a person with a disability, air travel is always a stressful, dehumanizing, and painful affair. This time was no different. From the first approach to the counter, I can see the perplexion on the faces of employees waiting to check me in. After assuring them that I am mentally fit to travel alone, the jousting for accessibility begins. I was informed that I had to take a seat wedged somewhere between two rows, an impossibility for someone of my size, especially seeing I am a "carry on" passenger. (the term used for people who cannot walk to their seat) My requests for a seat change were received with a cold shrug from one of the managers responsible for herding people onto the flight. After a stern and slightly louder protest from myself, a more senior official with the airlines was able to 'miraculously' change my seat to a front row.

Boarding the flight is always the most agonizing part. I have to be lifted for my chair onto a flimsy and extremely narrow "aisle chair" that is then difficultly pushed to my seat, where I have to be lifted again. I was really lucky in that the two young men that carried me were caring and concerned for my safety. Usually, there is a thin line between the way I'm carried and they way luggage is thrown into the belly of the plane.

As I was being dragged through the aisles, Mersedeh, the head flight attendant on Emirates Air to Dobuy on February 2nd, turned to me and spoke. I thought that she would say something to alleviate my fears and concerns. Instead she reminded me of some airline regulation that would ban me from taking the flight if I needed help during the flight. She was referring to how I would use the washroom during the twelve hour direct flight out of Canada. "Thanks!" I blurted out in her face. She rolled her eyes at me, and walked away, shaking her head to fellow crew members.

Throughout the flight, I was nestled in between an overweight Palestinian man from Gaza, whim I felt a natural affinity to, and an aisle ripe with kids and food carts smashing into my head everytime I fell asleep. My entertainment portal failed to work throughout the flight, and I was left to my active internal life to keep me entertained in the skies.

Do-buy

I was thirsty and desperate to pee when I arrived in the newly built lavish, yet eerily empty, terminal in dobuy. I was happy to see that three of my closest friends were waiting for me in the arrival halls, and after I spotted them from within the baggage reception area, I knew that liberation was near.

With a wheelchair, there is always some Taxi drama, and it is important to note here, that despite all the larger than life developments in dubai, there are only two accessible taxis in the entire United Arab Emirates, one of which was broken down that night, and the other was out on some run deep in the concrete jungles of plastic city.

We managed to squeeze into some non accessible van, and were reminded by an Emarati cop that Iraqis are treated like gold in the UAE. The outburst by the officer was a response to our disappointment in service. The officer must have forgotten that prior to Emarati support for the destruction of Iraq, dobuy was nothing more than a boring little dot on the map of the Earth.

From the cab, I was immediately inundiated with the political economy of the UAE. Desperate, oppressed faces of Asian workers dotted the streets of luxury. However, news of capitalist collapse in the Emirate warmed my heart to see that justice sometimes comes in weird and unexpected ways.

Ahmed, Hamdy, and Omar assured me that "Dubai will never fail," although with differing enthusiasm. I am thankful for their hospitality and their presence across the Gulf is always a strong reassurance that I am not alone.

At Hamdy's, I got to meet my two dear friends Basma and Mays. They are two beautiful strong Iraqi women forging their ways on their own conditions. As well, Sarmad and Naseer took me through the night with engaging conversations about Iraq, its destruction, and its future, or lack thereof.

The next day, I went to a photo shoot with Mays and Basma, who both work in the fields of promotion and beauty respectively. It was a promotional shoot for a new government authority mandated with addressing issues of inequity, inaccessibility, and social exclusion. Finally! I will keep you updated on the status of their development, or lack thereof.

Eventually, I met up with Hamdy, Sarmad, and Ahmed again at the seaside surroundings of the Jumairah Beach Residences (JBR). South African steakhouses, Starbucks, and fake Mexican food decorated the streets hugging the shores of the Gulf. Interestingly, there was great street art that was also featured on the coastal strip. But all in all, aesthetic beauty was doused with a great sense of oppression and colonial culture.

My jet lag forced me to sleep through most of our time at Trader Vic's, an after work hangout for the hordes of underqualified and overpaid British trash that Dubai loves to accomodate so much. I made my way to the airport, where the trials and tribulations of anti-access air travel whisked me off to Doha, where I post my blog from today.

Al Khor

A few kilometres outside of Doha, the relentless onslaught of sand dunes and rocky roads offer a sense of humility to a city that is growing faster and faster as each day passes by. We ventured out to the coastal area one day after I arrived to spend the night at Hussein's coastal getaway. A few tents, a huge fireplace, and an unlimited supply of hospitality were too difficult to turn away despite the intense sense of jetlag looming over my huge head.

Moayad brought his keyboards with him, and his musical talent kept us magically awake till the early hours of the morning. My "Diesel Medley" (a collection of dirty Iraqi songs) was a huge hit that night, and I was blessed to be surrounded with so many loved ones and great friends. Another great hit was the Mendy, a local term for food cooked underground, buried deep in the sand. Mustafa, my neighbor and dear friend, was a tremendous host and his hard work paid off in the most delicious of ways.

The beautiful beachy sunrise of next morning, however, shed light on the horrific experience of hearing young Iraqis talk about the destruction of their country. First, it began with a tirade of reactionary hate against Muntadhar Al Zaidi, the brave young journalists, who hurled his shoes at war criminal George Bush. "He is an embarassment!" or "Bush saved Iraq!" were just some of the disgusting comments hurled at me. I couldn't believe the audacity of these kids to support the killing of millions while they lived plush priviledged pathetic lives here in Doha.

However, it would be unfair, for me to point to these jokers without making reference to a wider context of apathy and self colonization that defines the Arab youth in the gulf, and i suspect, throughout the Arab world. People here are amazed with the efficiency of Wal Mart checkouts and are inspired by the way American police oppress young Arab delinquents there. Arab youth here, equipped with unintelligent business degrees from the West can't wait to sell their souls and the Arab world to Bechtel or the highest bidder. Arab youth join with their Afrikaan and British friends in dehumanizing migrant workers. Arab youth shudder at identifying with poorer Yemeni, Palestinian, or Sudanese youth. Instead, they seek comfort in the confines of a posh gym or a pretty bar. Arab youth are neither Arab nor youth anymore. They are dirty old white men.

Toronto

So much in Toronto keeps me busy, especially missing Saron, my next post will revisit some unfinished business there and reflect on things that might be unfolding in a city that my friend Hani calls so fittingly: a sewer.