The Earthquake in Turkey and Syria

What has happened in Turkey and Syria reminds me how fleeting and unpredictable this life is! For someone who is based in Egypt witnessed the revolutions and its repercussions such as insecurity, crackdowns, and gory scenes, I thought there would never be any harsher thing to experience in this life but I was mistaken. A five-minute shake was enough to turn everything upside down and erase life away from those places. I thought the current situation with the unprecedented inflation rate in Egypt was the most difficult thing could ordinary people experience. I, myself, think cautiously when I buy necessary things from the market. It is unimaginable how exorbitant prices are with more than 100% inflation rate and with the same meagre salaries (most of us barely earn 100usd monthly).

My heart goes out to Turkish and Syrian people for this calamity. I feel the Earth is retaliating and punishing us for choosing to be transgressors, imperialists, greedy, double-faced, hyperbolic, and bloodsuckers. Sometimes, I feel nothing towards my people other than sympathy. Ignorance and poverty snatch humanity away from us and they beget nothing but violence, barbarians who swoop down over vulnerable people, and arbitrary. I feel the whole world is on the verge of collapse and maybe we are too late to heed lessons. Sorry for being pessimistic about the future, but it is already blurry and gloomy!

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi~

The Seven Selves, Khalil Gibran

In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whisper:
First Self: Here, in this madman, I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night. I can bear my fate no longer, and now I rebel.

Second Self: Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given to me to be this madman’s joyous self. I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts. It is I that would rebel against my weary existence.

Third Self: And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires? It is I the love-sick self who would rebel against this madman.

Fourth Self: I, amongst you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but odious hatred and destructive loathing. It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman.

Fifth Self: Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in search of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel.

Sixth Self: And I, the working self, the pitiful labourer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms-it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman.

Seventh Self: How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfil. Ah! could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot! But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, while you are busy re-creating life.

Is it you or I, neighbours, who should rebel?
When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more; and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission.
But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.

Another Crime!

Gaza is the most segregated place in the world. Ordinary things like parsley, canned food and drinks, musical instruments, etc may not be allowed there according to the authority of the transgressor! They are under attack now. One million civilians are under threat and they are not less humans than Ukrainian and other vulnerable people in the globe!

Our solidarity and supplications with you!

The Meaning Of Motherhood In The Arab World And How It Has Changed Recently!

“Allah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. “Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred.”

An Egyptian woman who is single has decided to adopt a child and bring him up singlehandedly! She is an author, a well-known figure in Egypt. Ironically, her fame is based on a blog called “I want to be a bride”. She created this blog 15 years ago introducing herself as a single woman belonging to a group of other women aged from 25 to 35 years old whom are their society’s scrutiny and pressure to get married. I think I am one of them now as a thirty-year old! This coincides with an unbelievable video of a husband who stabbed his wife because she wanted to get divorce. News of a wife killed her husband unintentionally because he bought her one air conditioner not two as she desired! An accident of a doctor who was suffocated by her husband before her children as he usually abused her, but this time the result was lethal!

Women do not need wombs nor sperms to be real mothers within the lukewarm wedlock! It is an instinct we do have from the Almighty Allah, so children don’t ask for titles, lineages, nor names. They only need a shoulder to lean on, a cuddle away from judgemental people, a guru to teach him/her how to dust off themselves when life thrusts them. They will be also their mothers’ crutches in the future. Marriage is a blessing but it is not a hindrance to experience life as long as we don’t perform something prohibited or offensive! Alha for being a monotheist belonging to our forefather Abraham, Adam, and Eve. Alhamdulillah for knowing that we are mortals and everything is transient!

They are dead, we are dead! Therefore, we are woven into the same tapestry of life voluntarily and peacefully! Do whatever you want to do. Be whoever you want to be! Life is beautiful.

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Congratulations Ghada and Adam! I wish you all the best here and in the hereafter together, ameen!

A Quiz!

Today is the second anniversary of my blog! Time flies! There is a huge difference between today and how I was in 2018, but I am sure that I will go up many rungs maybe until I reach the peak. I have some questions as an Arab woman from the upper of Egypt, with illiterate milieu, tribal roots, a thirty-year-old woman “SPINSTER”, self-made, simple, strong-headed, studious, ambitious, willing to knock down all the obstacles, still down to earth, still ethereal, and spiritual too as a monotheist first and a muslim who is enjoined to befriend all and respect everyone’s choice, the question is why are you following this blog? Do you enjoy what you read here? Will this blog blossom? Have your standpoints changed about Arabs even the bare minimum? Do you think I am equal to any educated woman on earth? Will objectification be stopped? Will I get where I want to be? Will I get a scholarship to pursue my study abroad? May I be a CEO someday?! Will I get married to someone who is willing voluntarily to serve love, support, equality, and respect at the table of that sacred tie? Will you accept me? Will I coexist peacefully with my flaws and afflictions? A lot of questions and they always lead to the same labyrinth!

Hola friends and I am waiting for your answers!

Unorthodox, The Scandalous Rejection

As far as I can remember, I have always wanted everything from life, everything it can possibly give me. This desire separates me from people who are willing to settle for less. I cannot even comprehend how people’s desires can be small, ambitions narrow and limited, when the possibilities are endless

Deborah Feldman~

Ali Shariati

Similar to the prophets, the enlightened souls also neither belongs to the community or scientists nor to the camp of unaware and stagnant masses. They are aware and responsible individuals whose most important objective and responsibility is to bestow the great God-given gift of “self- awareness” (khod-agahi) to the general public. Only self-awareness transforms static and corrupt masses into a dynamic and creative cantor, which fosters great genius and gives rise to great leaps, which in turn become the springboard for the emergence of civilization, culture and great heroes. For ruining a fact, do not attack it, defend it badly!

Read On My Behalf Please!

A lot of things we can do through this crazy time. Please read to make that world bearable. Covid19 is a lesson, and history is full of many lessons, but we never heed intentionally or unintentionally! Those are 100 books, so read and fathom well.

The link;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsbOT8tkbgZ9gUske4ow_YjNeRiA?e=eZJ6pk

 

 

We Are The Scum Of The Earth

That beautiful woman with curly hair has been deserted for more than sixty years. She is sitting on the floor, pent-up, bare with consternation. Before her eyes, there is a slaughtered sheep. It was brutally killed as it was, reportedly, rabid. There are two dogs. Ostensibly, they are making love but this is far away from the truth! They are two males; one of them is indigent, afraid, and straight. While the other one is powerful, bloodsucker, and homosexual. Therefore, the indigent has nothing to do but lying down with bile. It is everyday practice with humiliation and utter submission.

The military guardian looks stern and vigilant. His paunch elucidates how satiating his diet is. We are perplexed if he is standing for dignity, or watching spoils. The scene is full of gory details and gloom.

That woman is voluble, but she is not allowed to have a say. When she wants to open up, she gets scorned and understated. She is sterile, they always covet everything she owns albeit. A suspicion of having precious gems or mere trinkets!

Hopefully, you will understand my point as I can not explicate any further. We are still watching that farce.

This is Walid Ebeid’s painting

Hocus Pocus

Before the Arab Spring, we thought there were no individuals in the Middle East.

This was the prologue of a book about the Middle East before and after revolutions. This sentence was nothing but the reality. We are not the luckiest on earth, except those in North Korea, as we can emigrate to another country. Ironically, North Koreans are more welcome than Arabs and receive more sympathy. There are a lot of similarities between both of them; tyranny, isolation, and the tainted blood. The more you grow up, the better you learn how to shoo to not get caught. Blurting a word out may cost you a soul.

Isolation does not require fences because ignorance is a great castle to cram those who do not understand what is different. It is a win-win situation for both sides. One side can easily have the upper hand, whilst the other one gets satisfied with pennies as their world is limited.

My people do not know that word “ambition“. They always say “little is better than nothing”. They are not aware of moving up the ladder because they were born poor, therefore they have to be so until they pass away. The same theory of ranking in North Korea.

Once I had a conversation with a friend talking about harassment in Egypt. Egyptians have a good ranking in watching pornography. I replied that human beings always look for catharsis. The majority are unemployed, and if you are jobless, so you will be unable to marry. Job is your dignity, your own crutch, and manhood. Even though, salaries are meagre in Egypt, they represent safety as they are permanent even after the provider’s death.

We are not individuals. I mean not as humanistic as you are. You are first class citizens and we are Scapegoats. You have been invaded once, then you have decided to avenge and invade many countries as you would never forget! We are mere statistics getting used to witnessing gory details firsthand.

I am not trying to justify anything. I am another scapegoat belonging to the grassroots without any privilege. There is neither robust education, nor extraordinary talent. I only want to fly away. Maybe I want to be a predator to be able to fare well in this society.

Sorry for disturbing you, but it is only a glimpse and I want to share it with you. Someday, I will have my walled garden, and I promise you that I will share it too!

I highly recommend reading The New Middle East: The World After The Arab Spring book.

For me parliament is a circus, it’s big beard versus small beard, who can be more right-wing than the other, who can be more obsessed with sex and moral values than the other, and who can waste all this time talking about Internet porn and not teaching English in school, whereas the majority of Egyptians’ concerns are unemployment, poverty and security on the streets,’ said the writer and activist Mona Eltahawy.

One of the sentences that described the scene after the Egyptian revolution and encapsulated how Egyptians think and prioritize things. Sex comes first, then we can discuss science and education.

I have a say please!

Educate me well. Therefore, you will be able to curb my animalistic instinct when your actions rage me.

Greedy Bellies, Hungry Hearts

Romanticism and materialism are by-products of categorisation, conflicts, wars, order, races, etc. Greedy bellies have converted us into mere expats fleeing from that suffocating periphery. Living up to people’s expectations causes greed, whilst we grow expats because social norms insist on leaving us adrift. Human psyche is easily acquainted with, but still difficult to be redressed.

Accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Hellotalk,etc, are meant to be hearts’ food. Compliments and emoticons are tidbits would never make us full. To my way of thinking, relationships, especially, online ones are paintings relying on the painters. We are the painters who choose which one to show off, or dismiss, which is considered a masterpiece, or barely a scribble.

According to science, order is woven into the tapestry of life and it is something unchangeable as evolution occurs differently. However, religions have another standpoints that human beings are equal before Allah.

“And drive not away those who call upon their Lord morning and evening, desiring His Face. Naught of their reckoning falls upon thee and naught of thy reckoning falls upon them, such that thou shouldst drive them away and thus become one of the wrongdoers.”

This Quranic verse was reportedly revealed when a group of prominent Makkans indicated that they wished to join the Prophet’s teaching circle, but were loathe to sit among and be associated with some of Muhammad’s other followers who were of low social standing (including Bilāl and other freed slaves) and so asked the Prophet to send them away.

Universal trust: with money as a go-between, any two people can cooperate on any project.

Human beings believe that money is the key overshadowing hearts. I am deep down sure that there is a relationship between money and that void in our lives. Accumulation of one side will definitely shrink the other one. Ironically I have none of them, but that void is unbearable!

A Solo Journey

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. When I remember who I am, I read the prophet book, Gibran Khalil Gibran with the song, https://m.soundcloud.com/haydarhamid/dnlywl3n7wvy

Marriage What Makes Our Lives, As Women, Uneventful!

Definitions belong only to the definer, not the defined.

She may be called a spinster in the Middle East, or a leftover in the Far East which elucidates how sketchy her self image is without a man. Ironically, if a man does not get married, it is because he is not willing to do so. On the other hand, if a woman does not get married, this means she is a relic, a surplus, etc!

every society accumulated layer upon layer of cultural ideas and norms that have little to do with biology. Societies associate a host of attributes with masculinity and femininity that, for the most part, lack a firm biological basis!

In a larger space, for example in North Korea, the sexes become segregated. At mealtime, the women huddle together over a low wooden table near the kitchen, eating cornmeal, which was cheaper and less nutritious than rice, the preferred staple of North Koreans. The father and son eat rice at their own table.

At the time, girls are not supposed to ride bicycles. There is a social stigma. People think it unsightly and sexually suggestive, and periodically the Workers’ Party have issued formal edicts, making it technically illegal.Therefore, if a girl rode a bicycle, men would try to pass her on their bicycles, cursing her for her audacity.
“You’re going to tear your cunt,” they would scream at her. Ironically, North Korea is not a religious country, but it is as abhorrent as the Arab world.

Ostensibly, objectification turns us, as women, into a burden which prompts the society to get rid of even if the ring will turn into handcuffs!

Without marriage, the rhythm of your life will get cacophonous. However, marriage is a contract which is based on mutual consent between a man and a woman to fulfil their sexual needs and support each other. There are neither slaves nor masters. It is an equation of caretaker with woman’s resourcefulness.

The picture shows what was prohibited for women in the medieval history because of culture and only culture! We still have miles of illumination to go before we sleep.

Be Mindful

“To wisely live your life, you do not need to know much. Just remember two main rules for the beginning:
You better starve, than eat whatever, and better be alone than with whoever” This is a quote of the prominent philosopher Omar Khayyam. Two pieces of advice which crystallize the ideal life with healthy bodies and jubilant hearts.

Regarding food, we are the masters, and our bodies are mere acolytes. However, hearts blindly mastermind our lives. Recently, I pondered hard over how I could manage my life, what shackled me to better myself. How many times was I able to converge with my heart? I think the answer is never!

Hearts are easily portable, but still incorrigible. Their recalcitrance is ingrained incapable of overriding correctly. Three decades, and my heart is still floundering, soliciting support from others. Hearts were never destined to be loners. Hearts sprout among cliques in the form of family, friends, healthy relationships, and success.

Neither you nor your heart is a guru. Therefore, embrace each other’s choices as infallibility is not a quality of earthling creatures.