Archive for March, 2006

March 15, 2006

Weapons of the weak

March 15th 2006 Posted to

 

I was watching and old episode of ER the other day; I do enjoy this show, even though it does not fit the profile of my favourite shows which are usually action and mystery such as Quantum leap, Alias, the pretender.  Anyhow, there was this scene where Dr Carter pisses off one of the nurses, and all the nurses stand together.  In revenge they wake him every half an hour for nothing when he stays at the hospital for the night shift… so what ends up happening is that Dr. Ross the charming Clooney tells him, he should buy the nurses doughnuts and apologize for whatever he has done. I discussed this with Layla, who is a doctor, because I found it really amusing!  she was telling me how as a doctor, she has to make sure the nurses are very happy, because if she pisses them off for whatever reason, they make her life miserable hell! Things start disappearing, orders start being ignored, charts mixed up…etc. 

 

This leads me to a book I came upon.  It is the weapons of the weak by Scott, through one of topics at school. This book became a movement.  it discusses this exact point by giving an example of the peasants in Malaysia, who revolt against their landlords,  and against the inequality and injustice of life by every day hidden forms of resistance  because they need to live and they can’t just revolt openly. They pretend they are stupid, they break things, they steal little things, they kill animals, they drag their foot throughout the day…etc.  I loved the study… because really this is how human nature works. We resist in small things when we can’t do much to change our realities. This is how maids resist their tyrant employers, this is how wives resist when their too controlling husbands,  this is how children resist when their parents or teachers are too un-understanding… Another example was in memoirs of a geisha Tchio resists the cruelty of the grandmother by rubbing her robes with smelly bathroom towels and the cruelty of the cook, by finding mice and putting them in the kitchen saying that brought her so much satisfaction, although they never knew what hit them. Thinking of this reminded me of a childish dream of one of my friends at school, which I found absolutely fascinating at the time. My friend was dreaming about having absolute power in the future…. Today, I realize that the concept of absolute power does not exist, because no matter what, human beings are free… and as long as e have a spirit and an instinct, it is difficult to achieve absolute power

 

On a different note, one of the things I love most about our culture is the strong family bonds. I have about 35 cousins. One of the wives got sick. This lady is introvert and very much into herself. Her family does not live in Jordan. When she was alone in the hospital and the family realized, everyone started doing something, one aunt would send food, another cousin will take the kids for the day, a third one took the baby till the mother is out of the hospital, another uncle would stay in the hospital… and so on… and although naïve, it made me feel proud of belonging to the culture that still believes in strong family bonds.

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March 13, 2006

Dr. Wafa Sultan shocking interview

March 13th 2006 Posted to

I know this is old news; it dates back to the 21 of February.  I received this from a friend few days ago and it was one of those interviews that got me thinking for days. I am talking about Dr. Sultan Interview at al Jazeera TV.

Now let’s try to keep an open mind about this whole interview, there were both positive and negative points in the interview. To start with the positive, she really displayed a lot of courage in saying what no one else dared say. Lets imagine a scenario, a non-Muslim western woman in the Hyatt in Amman,  this imagined lady lost her partner and the love of her life with the explosions… would that person go having positive ideas about Muslims?… lets think of the same scenario in a house in Palestine, where a missile just hit the house and a Muslim visitor has lost her partner and the love her life… would she think positively of Jews?

What I am trying to say is that we Muslims should not fall in the trap of double standards that we condemn all the time… people of the world do think badly of us Muslims. Is it fair? I can’t answer this question… I know that my blood boiled when I heard about the explosions in Amman. 

 What this Syrian doctor has achieved is made me realize how the world thinks of us Muslims… Now, I know this is not the truth about us, and many Muslims know that Islam is not a violent religion, on the contrary a religion that has showed mercy and leniency all through history. The prophet words were about mercy and leniency, but really is this the case in today’s picture of Islam? Many of her arguments were really and truly valid… her bitter criticism of all these holy people who interpret Qura’an  and say that the murders are justified in the name of religion. Her argument was that in today’s world, Islam which is the religion of a billion people in a world of six billion plus divides people into true believers and infidels, and are called to fight until all people believe, which makes Muslims stand alone in isolation against the rest of the world.

Now to the negatives.  Dr. Sultan did not make any distinction between Islam and Muslims, which I found not fair, what Muslims do, does not reflect the spirit of Islam, especially that these are a minority. She kept mixing national identities with religion in a non-balanced way.  I believe the provocative bit comes from the comparison she made between Muslims and Jews, because her facts were neither accurate nor fair.  are we talking about the land or about the religion?  These are completely different stories.  “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”


 Is this really true? Would the millions of Palestinians s in Diaspora agree with this? Those who were killed and raped and tortured and thrown out of their lands and houses… would they agree? What about the crying and yelling? Please…. What is the massacre most celebrated in the world? How many massacres happened through the history of the world? How many out there would know about the Rwanda genocide for example vs. how many know about the Holocaust?

Another example is when she said: “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.”  This made me wonder where she has been living the last 50 years.  
 Maybe they did not blow themselves up, but that does not mean they did not kill people or destroy holly places… as a matter of fact,  there are several events that come to my mind without even thinking; the massacre of Hebron to start with… then the 1200 Islamic mosques that were destroyed in Palestine.  Among the historic mosques that were converted to synagogues or restaurants and bars are Yaquque mosque in Tiberias turned into Hibaquqeu synagogue, Abu Huraira mosque in Ramleh turned into Jamli’el synagogue, Wadi Hunayn mosque also in Ramleh turned into Geulat Yesrael synagogues….etc.
  In conclusion, regardless of what she said, I think she would have been a winner if she was more diplomatic in what she said, and if she was fair.  I remember my dad used to tell me as a child, when you are right, you are never afraid… and if we Muslims believe that we are right, we should never be afraid of being questioned,  and we should argue smartly… I insist on smartly, because in this interview the people who were debating were noton equal pace with the doctor.

 

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