Russia announced on Friday it would start carrying out regular anti-piracy patrols in the waters off Somalia.
A navy spokesman said a warship had been sent to the area earlier this week and the aim of the deployment was to protect Russian citizens and ships.


The horn of Africa is no longer American...

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I'll be travelling to Syria this evening so I won't be blogging for a while I imagine, unless my plan for bypassing censorship works in which case I will be posting regularly. If nobody hears from me in three weeks then I'm either in prison or doing press-ups for the army.

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"When in doubt, escalate the war, is an old imperial motto. The strikes against Pakistan represent - like the decisions of President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, to bomb and then invade Cambodia - a desperate bid to salvage a war that was never good, but has now gone badly wrong."

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"A motorist has driven a car at speed into a group of soldiers in the Israeli city of Jerusalem, injuring at least 10 people - one seriously"

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On the bomb attack in Pakistan, from The Times:

Pakistan's top leaders were to have attended a state dinner at the luxury Islamabad hotel devastated in a suicide bomb attack on Saturday but changed venue at the last minute, it emerged today.

On Pakistan and the United States from the BBC:

Pakistani troops have fired at two US helicopters forcing them back into Afghanistan, local Pakistani intelligence officials say

The helicopters flew into the tribal North Waziristan region from Afghanistan's Khost province at around midnight, the reports say.

Last week Pakistani troops fired into the air to prevent US ground troops crossing the border further south.

Tensions have risen after an increase in US attacks targeting militants.
Pakistan's army has said it will defend the country's sovereignty and reserves the right to retaliate to any border violations.

The latest on Lev Leviev from the Independent:

The British Government's plan to rent new premises in a Tel Aviv skyscraper hasrun into trouble after a wave of protests that their prospective landlord is a major participant in Jewish settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.

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Open letter to the president of the Palestinian Authority

Dear Mr. The President of the Palestinian Authority
My name is Abdelfattah Abdelkarim Hasan Ibrahim Mohamad Ahmad Mostafa Ibrahim Srour Abusrour. I was born in Aida Refugee camp, on a rented land for 99 years by UNRWA from Palestinian owners of Bethlehem. My two eldest brothers as well as my father and his father and all those who were born before them, originate from Beit Nateef, a destroyed village on 21 of October 1948. My mother was born in Zakareya village, destroyed as well in 1948 by the Zionist bandits. These were 2 of 534 villages destroyed by these Zionist bandits.
I grew up in Aida refugee camp. When I was 4 years old, I remember most of the people in the camp hiding in a cave behind our house. I remember the old people talking about the war. I remember the sky full of planes, and all of the young children covered by black blankets, and cherished by their mothers.
I remember the first curfew after the Israeli occupation in Aida camp in 1968. I remember the first Israeli soldier, who was an old Iraqi Jew of about 60 years old who took position in front of the door of our house. I remember the day my second brother was invited for an interview by the military occupation administration in 1972, and never returned back to the house. I remember that he was exiled 6 months later, without any confession, without any judgment or court sentence.
I remember the first collective water distribution point in the camp. There were four points with four taps each for the whole population in the camp. I also remember the first collective WCs in the camp. There were 4 points. Each point was composed of one for males and one for females. I remember the field around the camp, where we used to play, to perform our plays in the open fields. I remember the big holes in the ground, when they were filled with water, they became our swimming pools.
I remember the first colony around us, the Gilo colony… the cranes are still working in it since the early seventies. I remember the Jewish worshippers coming to the Mosque Bilal ibn Rabah, which was transformed into Rachel Tomb Synagogue to pray their prayers. We were no more allowed to wash our deads and to make last prayers for burying them in the cemetery next to it.
I remember the first Israeli checkpoint between Bethlehem and Alquds-Jerusalem. I remember the first permits requested by Israelis, and all the alternative roads and all the passages to go around the military checkpoints that we have to take since we didn't have permits.
I remember the evolution of the wall from the state of masses of dirt, to big holes in the roads and streets, to blocks of barbwires, or blocks of cement of 2 meters high, then 4 meters then 8 to 12 meters high. I remember all the times I was caught by Israeli soldiers on my way to my family in Alquds – my wife is from East Jerusalem-. I remember all those 6 years where I took every known and unknown road from Bethlehem to Alquds, by the East or by the West, on main roads or through valleys and hills.
I remember the space shrinking in the camp, and the population increasing to 5000 people now who originated from 41 different villages destroyed by the Zionists bandits, where 66% are under 18 years old, and the street their only space for play. Walls have been built, encircling the camp from the East, the North and part of the West.
I remember of this Jericho agreement, where the checkpoint at the entrance of Jericho should have been only symbolic because you accepted that it remains, and where we Palestinians are stopped for hours by any simple Israeli occupation soldier. And now, we discuss a passage to the old city of Jerusalem, under the control of this same Israeli occupation army.
I remember that we were fed the love of this occupied country, because it is ours. I remember the rusty keys of our houses in Beit Nateef, keys for doors that exist no more, but keys that have their doors in our hearts and our imagination… keys for doors that were real and have exited, for real houses that were built and have exited, in which real people lived in and brought up children. These rusty keys are still with me. I remember that we were brought up with this eternal belief that the right is the right, and nothing can justify ignoring it. I remember that our right of return to our original villages and homes is eternal, and nothing can change it, neither realities on the ground nor political agreement, because it is not only a collective right, but is as well an individual right… it is my right Mr. the president, and the right of my children and grand children and all those who come after wherever they are born.
Dear Mr. the President
I remember the death of my mother, on September 9th, 2003. She was 75 years old. I remember the death of my father on December 26th, 2006. He was 96 years old. My mother and my father were hoping to be buried in their village, where they got married, where they brought up their children, where they irrigated their land with their sweat, blood, and tears; where they filled their land with joy, happiness, laughs and whispers.
My parents are buried in the cemetery of Aida camp. My mother's tomb is next to a military tower, and surrounded by Israeli barbwire. My mother's tomb is not accessible… I can't visit it in a day of feast to recite on her tomb Alfateha or a surat of the Holy Coran.
Dear Mr. the President
I was full of hope that after 60 years of occupation, after 60 years of armed and non-armed resistance we could achieve something other than shallow promises. I was full of hope that we will never give up our rights, these rights which are recognized by the whole world, even if the whole world remains complicit with injustice. I was full of hope that nothing can justify giving up such rights, with all the realities on the ground as they say…otherwise what heritage we are leaving to our children and the generations to come. Should we say to them: Go to where the wind takes you… never stand up and resist the oppression… the importance is to stay alive even if it is a life of humiliation and non recognition of belonging to a human race?

Where are you talking us Mr. the President? To what desert are you leading us? To what catastrophe? How dare you deciding how many refugees can or cannot return? Who gave you permission to speak in my name, and in my children name? Who asked you to make sales on our rights? What is the price for such sales on people's rights and sacrifices for 60 years?

Where UN resolutions talk about Right of Return AND Right of Compensation for all this suffering in exile and refuge, for all this exploitation of lands and properties, for all this humiliation and torture that worsens every day, you dare to say that not everybody wants to return? Even if this is the case, they have their right to their homes and lands, whether they want to return or not. They can sell it to others if they want, but it is not you or anyone else besides them who decide who want or not to return. It is not your right or anyone else to say "those who don't want to return should be compensated". Every single refugee and son of a refugee and grand son or daughter of a refugee have to be compensated for these 60 years of Nakba, those who left or forced to leave; those who are owners of lands, those who had their fields and oranges and fruitful trees. Yes, the oranges of Jaffa were before Israel and they will stay after Israel, if they don't end by destroying them, as they dead with the olive trees old of thousands of years.

You were not elected Mr. le President to give away our rights… to give away the hopes and dreams and rights of people who are still in refugee camps, living on rented lands, refugees in their own country or outside their own country, and who still wait to return to their original homes and lands for the past 60 years.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, we are living in lies… and broken promises of change… well, change comes but to the worse and not to the better. Nothing improves with all these negotiation Mr. the President? Should we undress ourselves and show our nudity so that Israeli leaders and occupation forces be satisfied that we have nothing to hide?

Yesterday, Israelis have distributed papers in East Jerusalem using the Holy Koran and their Bible to say that they are fulfilling the promise of God to populate Israel and chase away every other non-Jewish. And we should understand that and help them, by leaving the country because we have so many other Arab countries for us? And after that we can live in peace and our children will be happy with their children, and things will be great. Is this the next step Mr. the President? Is it because colonies on the ground are expanding, and that we can't force our presence on Israel, and that we should be nice so that the whole world be sympathetic to us, that we do whatever Israel wants us to do? And then we talk about horrible compromises and difficult solutions, so we should be the nice ones who make the compromise, who forgive, who forget, who give up, who leave or die because that would solve it for all?

Mr. the President
I am not ready to leave. I will never leave, even if it is the only way to earn a living. I will never give up my right to return to my village, even if I have a castle in UK, and a chateau in France, and chalet at the red sea, and a property in Bahamas. My right is mine, and neither you nor anybody else have the right to erase it and exchange it or play with it.

We were hearing RED LINES that will never be crossed. What remains from these red lines Mr. the President? We heard about the green line… it became the gray line of the separation wall. Red lines became pink, and they were mixed with white till they became invisible. Is this what remains of our struggle history, and all the blood of martyrs and years of imprisonment?

I do hope that you leave your tower of ignorance to the needs of your people and descend a little bit on the ground and look in the eyes of those who still have a passion for this country despite the disasters that we sank in with such futile and fruitless negotiations, while the Palestinian blood is shed daily by those with whom you negotiate. Have we no more shame to stop such circus from going on?
I would have loved Mr. the President that such energy in negotiation with Israelis be invested among Palestinians who are still in dispute, and because of such stubbornness from our political leaders, it is not you leaders who suffer, but your people. Are we in such a way so worthless that we do not deserve your time and energy to stop this circus and unite your people instead of searching always what divides such tortured spirits? Is it not enough that we are considered only as a humanitarian case, that worth no more than a sack of flour or a bottle of oil or an expired medication? Is it not enough that a whole population is transformed into beggars and put in poverty, depending on charity rather than helping them to be producers and keep up their dignity? Isn't the humiliation by the occupation enough that we are forced to have more humiliations to come?
I am full believer in peace and non-violence. I am a full believer in hope and right and justice. I am a full believer in the values that make of the humanity what it is. I never learned to hate. I never hated any one. My parents were full of love and peace. They never taught me or my brothers anything other than respect of others and endless love to give and help the others. They taught us that when you practice violence you lose part of your humanity. But in the same time, they taught us to defend what is right and to stand against what is unjust and wrong. Therefore, Mr. the President, I do dare to say that you have no right, even as president of an authority which has no authority on anything- except maybe on us- which cannot protect us or protect itself even in front of any male or female Israeli soldier, to give up our rights, the rights of two thirds of your people to return in dignity to their destroyed lands and properties and to be compensated for all this suffering and exile, and the use of their lands and fields and the stealing of their funds in British banks or other banks by the Zionists.
Mr. the President
I don't know if you will read these words or not… If I will stay alive when you read them or not… but I do hope that such words which come from the heart, reach your heart Mr. the President, and you can find the hope and strength our people still have in him. We do not give up our rights. We will never give up our rights. Peace can be built with justice. Real peace can be built with real justice… anything else is just a joke in the face of history.
My name is Abdelfattah Abdelkarim Hasan Ibrahim Mohamad Ahmad Mostafa Ibrahim Srour Abusrour. I am still a refugee in my own country with 2 rusty keys in the house.

--
AbdelFattah Abusrour, PhD
Ashoka Fellow
Director of Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Center
____________________________________________
Alrowwad is an Independent Center for artistic, cultural, and theatre training for children in Aida Camp trying to provide a "safe" and healthy environment to help children creativity and discharge of stress in the war conditions they are forced to live in.
Mobile: 0522 401 325 or 0599 255 573 Telefax: +970 2 275 0030
email: alrowwadtheatre@gmail.com or aabusrour@gmail.com
web site: http://alrowwad.virtualactivism.net
http://www.amis-alrowwad.org , http://www.imagesforlifeonline.com

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Syria and Globalisation

I asked politely if there was a queue and the young woman said there was indeed. She looked English and was sitting quietly with her papers and passport in a folder. I sat next to her and pretended to be going through my documents. I noticed her looking over my shoulder, trying to find out who I was so I thought the only right thing for me to do was to also peer unobtrusively at her papers. Monitor Company Europe, a British passport and money for a visa along with some other papers. I'd never heard of such a company and the logo was simple and elegant. Apparently she had only just heard that she was due to fly and needed the visa urgently. The lady at the counter told her she could pick it up in two days, in time for her flight to Damascus.

Monitor is a management consulting firm which was setup in 1983 by some Harvard business professors. It operates in a range of countries and employs over a thousand people but surprisingly, Syria was not in its list of clients. Perhaps because the deals haven't been finalised. A quick flick through their website showed that they pride themselves on the articles written by some of their authors. I did a search for "Syria" and found a list of pieces by these authors along with some presentations. I clicked on one, by someone called Peter Schwartz, and found the following, "The Future of the Middle East", a paper to the World Affairs Council Annual Conference in 2005. I'd never heard of them but here are some interesting parts of it which I quote:

Now if you listen to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the role of the outsiders in the region is basically to tilt the playing field, to tilt the board. That's all we can really do: tilt the board one way or the other. We can tilt it in the right direction or fail to do so. In these scenarios that I'm about to present, you can see the different ways that the superpowers, the great nations outside the region, tilt and influence the direction of the board.

So why is this subject interesting now? I think it's because of this remarkably fluid moment- perhaps the most interesting moment in the Middle East in many, many, many years. The board has been tilted and the pieces are in motion. And the U.S. role in this is enormous. The U.S. intervention has tilted the playing field - tilted it away from dictatorships. I want to read a brief, beautiful quote from my friend Fouad Ajami, also from the latest issue of Foreign Affairs:

Suddently, it seems like the autumn of the dictators. Something different has been injected in this fight: the United States. A great foreign power that once upheld the Arab autocrats, fearing what mass politics would bring, now braves the storm. It signaled its willingness to gamble on the young, the new, and the unknown. Autocracy was once deemed tolerable. But terrorists nurtured in the shadows of such rule attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Now th Arabs, grasping for a new world, and the Americans, who have helped usher in the unprecedented moment, together ride this storm wave of freedom.

I think it is a remarkable moment in that respect; whether it's the death of Arafat or the Iraqi elections or the Lebanese assassination, it is an historic opportunity to get the tilt right.

I have one question which keeps coming up when I read this part, get the tilt right for whom? Why is this person so concerned about this? He gives three scenarios for the region and offers these as valid choices which could make or break his paradise vision of the regions future. In one part he talks about the potential of the Arab world to join the "great wave of globalisation", provided that is, that the Arab world "educates" their people. Thank you Mr Schwartz.

I looked up who the World Affairs council are, and it is nothing but an annual gathering of the worlds "elite" with the US political establishment. My impression of it is that it is a networking forum for capitalists who like to dabble with politics so that they can feel sophisticated and intellectual. Going back to Monitor, I had a look at the Wikipedia web entry for the company, and found a list of the most prominent employees of this company. My suspicions grow by the minute. One of its employees is the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service Richard Dearlove, another is Rahul Ghandi, son of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi. There is also a French Ambassador to Afghanistan and a former deputy Minister of Defense , Mr Jean de Ponton d'Amécourt and a host of other 'captains of industry'. So a company like this is coming to Syria potentially looking for business or already in business.

One thing I noticed as I read more about this company was how it really does represent organisations and individuals who are at the very top of Western political, defense, capitalist and educational establishments. The line blurs between Ivy League academics, spy chiefs, politicians and ambitious graduates who are tested for 'emotional intelligence' and who can eventually carry the torch for the company onwards. Country borders are meaningless, the elites of various countries are all in on this and members of the same club, albeit with Western names firmly at the top. The thought of Syria trying to gain entry into this club for any reason at all is hardly surprising, but it still sickens me. I can now understand why early Muslims would flee if anybody tried to put them in positions of power, influence and government. The state, and all who deal with it, can never be trusted.

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After Syria, where else is there for us to go?

Syria has been in the spotlight a lot more in recent years and this has not always been for good reasons. The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, events in Lebanon and the continued aggressions of Zionism have all renewed attention in this small part of the world. Unsavory countries such as the United States, Britain and France continue to take turns waving either carrots or sticks in order to pressure Syria into submission to Israel, parting ways with Iran or with wielding an influence on the various resistance groups with links to Damascus. One of the sticks they have been using with great effect has been the prevention of any sizable assistance towards the refugee crisis which they, the West, have created through their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It shamed me to hear that Syria had effectively closed its borders last year and implemented tighter entry requirements on the Iraqis but regardless, Syria remains the best option for many Iraqi refugees amongst the other so-called 'Arab' countries. Primary and emergency healthcare are available to some extent but a large number of Iraqis there still have to rely on what little humanitarian medical assistance is available, primary and secondary education are free but materials and uniforms must be purchased, placing a bigger burden on already struggling families. It is far from perfect and certainly not comfortable but history has again chosen to have this ancient land play the role of unwilling refuge for the truly downtrodden and oppressed of this world. Throughout this article I refer to the land and its people rather than any passing government, past or present.

In Damascus there is an area called the Muhajireen (the immigrants) which had been used to house refugees from the Balkans and Eastern Europe that had been ethnically cleansed off their land. As the Ottoman empire crumbled, the advancing Europeans forced thousands of families off their lands and villages. Many of these, escaping to Islamic lands, found refuge on the mountain slopes overlooking Damascus in two successive waves, 1890 and 1896. In 1897, many more joined them as they escaped from massacres which had been taking place on the island of Crete. At the beginning of the 19th century the French invasion and occupation of Algeria had also begun and many Algerian families were exiled or escaped to Syria. Including these was the great hero Abdul Qadir al Jaza'iri, whose troops prevented the massacre of Christians during ethnic tensions in Damascus. His remains were eventually repatriated to Algeria upon its independence but his home and burial place remain to be seen in Damascus. At the turn of the 19th century, Circassians (including my great-grandfather) who were being ethnically cleansed by the Russian Tsar's troops also found refuge in the land of Sham (Greater Syria) and settled across the region, assimilating into the population. Then again, in the First World War, Ottoman massacres of Armenians also forced many thousands to seek refuge in these same lands and again, a fresh wave was added to the complex but beautiful patchwork which makes up the peoples of this land. The occupation and continued ethnic cleansing of Palestine driven by Zionism added fresh waves of Palestinian refugees to the mix and again, unlike in other Arab countries, they were not forced into ghettos nor persecuted. During the tensions in Jordan many Jordanian refugees also came to Syria and were subsequently given permits to work in various jobs such as taxi drivers. Some remained there. For many Lebanese, Syria has also been a safe haven during times of war and this was never made clearer than during the Israeli aggression of 2006 when thousands were given assistance and shelter, sometimes by normal Syrian families of meagre incomes.

It is inevitable that tensions would arise since this is not a rich country, but to have others, including many Syrians and supposedly 'progressive' bloggers and writers, lecture everyone else about the need to eliminate Syrian 'racism' is ludicrous. When I hear the British media talk about 'multi-culturalism' as if it is something they can teach to the rest of the world, I smile. The inherent racism which makes such a statement and political posture necessary would be looked at with curiosity in a country like Syria where it is part of the very fabric of society. Yet the West has always projected its own failures, its own sexual perversions and its own immorality on its victims, then sought to save them from themselves. Western (including Zionist) academia, the media and politicians all weave the lie, then believe it. They need the lie in order to feel good about themselves, in order to believe that what they are doing is just rather than see themselves for the rapists and pillagers that they really are. That some Arabs believe this discourse, internalise it and then have the temerity to lecture other Arabs about it is sad and misguided to say the least. Time and again, in spite of its many flaws, Syria remained the safe haven for all those in the Arab and Islamic world who have been persecuted and oppressed - mainly in the name of Empire. Syria has been hiding from the world for a long time, playing its role quietly, but we all know that the greed of these people is insatiable. After Syria, where else is there for us to go?

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Anybody fancy joining the West's Middle East War? MI6 are now hiring.

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For those with no satellite dish and living abroad, AqsaTube is showing each Bab el Hara episode as and when it comes up. You can watch all the episodes here. Enjoy!

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A few months ago I was walking around, dazzled, by the beauty of the al-Hambra palace and that of the Mosque of Cordoba. We, Arabs, were walking around as normal tourists, looking at these quaint palaces, these beautiful buildings and columns. We were here as guests, walking around amongst the ruins. But these buildings had names, Arabic names that were then bastardised into another language. We were waiting an hour to enter these palaces by a Spanish security guard. Behind us in the queue were three 'Israeli' tourists who were also there to see these beautiful places as if they were going to see the Great Wall of China or Macchu Picchu. An Andalusian Arab would have looked at us the way a Palestinian might see a Saudi or Egyptian tourist sightseeing the al-Aqsa mosque. For a split second, it was as if there was a mental distinction between those who once lived there, and us. When that distinction faded we found ourselves thinking of Palestine and Iraq as we walked quietly on the skulls of the Andalusians.

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The Western media can barely conceal its erection with the recent filming of an Iraqi female suicide bomber. Pretending to objectively 'dissect' her possible motives and reasons for doing this, they try to hide the perverse glee with which they gloat over her semi-bare bosom. The forbidden, exotic, Muslim woman is captured in order to then be tamed.

Lt Col DA Sims, deputy commanding officer of the Baquba-based US 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, whose staff also interrogated the girl, has an open mind about Ibrahim's intentions

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An "open mind"? Thank you Lt. Colonel Sims. Have you never wondered why your name is different from the people you 'interrogate'? Why you are different from these people? It is because you do not belong there you arrogant and ignorant man. I read this article and it is astounding how it goes - almost in one breath - from describing the womans arrest and the 'heroic' Iraqi mercenary pictured defusing her belt, to quoting her AMERICAN interrogator. Almost as if it is as natural for him to be there and a part of this process as it would be for any other Iraqi official. Can you picture one of Saddam's henchmen being quoted after the capture and 'interrogation' of a potential bomber? Can you imagine him saying he has an 'open mind' about her intention? You will not even bat an eyelid if they said his name was Abdullah, Mustafah or Riad. Don't these people understand? Are they insane?

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"Time will tell whether the preachers' message will prove effective and discourage women from resorting to fuel and matches to get their message across. What's certain is that the traditional path of "patience and forbearance" has lost its appeal to Afghan women."

The 'traditional' path has lost its appeal? What about almost thirty years of foreign invasion and occupation? This writer, and others such as Khaled Diab, are pathologically incapable of even acknowledging the existence of foreign occupation and intervention in their countries. The fault must lie in these 'backward' peoples rather than be attributed to the West. The logic of colonialism is internalised, defended and then championed.

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Abuse of synthetic drugs like ecstasy and amphetamines is on the rise in the developing world, according to the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). While such drug abuse is stabilising in many developed countries, it is increasing in East and South East Asia and the Middle East, the UNODC said. A UNODC report said the annual use of synthetic drugs exceeded that of cocaine and heroin combined.

Occupation is not only physical.

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"With this comes a change in lifestyle. Dubai has catered for Western tastes for decades, with five-star hotels and restaurants allowed to serve alcohol and run nightclubs where anything goes, as long as it stays off the streets and beaches. But AD is catching up. It is not uncommon now to see young Emiratis - sometimes in long, flowing robes but with back-to-front baseball cap - propping up hotel bars and chatting to vivacious young women. Weekends consist of beach excursions where Islamic conventions are largely ignored. Many young Emirati women, usually seen in the full-length black abaya during the week, will be in bikinis at weekends. This trend has been reinforced by the influx of young, fun-loving Lebanese. The Lebanese and their Emirati hosts now strut the luxury shopping malls with equal assurance - but it is the Emiratis who carry the Vuitton or Cartier bags and get into the chauffeured limos afterwards."

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The [extremely short] history of Arab sites online

If you were an Arab who lived abroad in the year 2000, unless you had a satellite dish, it was incredibly difficult to keep in touch with things that were happening back home. I used to remember endlessly searching the Internet looking for things about Damascus whenever I was home sick, and I recall having on my computer desktop a picture of Damascus which showed Qasyoun mountain in the background of a sprawling city. To make it a tad more nostalgic, I had the image converted into black-and-white since it wasn't of good quality. To my surprise it is still floating about online and I've attached it on this post for you all to see. This is one of the first pictures of Syria on the Internet by an unknown photographer - enjoy. Another thing which I found hard to do at the time was to find any good Arabic MP3's. Back then I had just discovered Napster but, to my deep dismay, there were precious little good Arabic songs available. The many Arabic music sites now available were nowhere to be seen and the most people could hope for was the - at the time extremely popular - Arabia.com which is now defunct and which could have allowed people to share their favourite songs online or tips on where to find all things Arab on the web. There were also the beginnings of the horrid discussion boards which are now everywher. All these were a way for the online Arab community to stay somehow stay connected in the wilderness of a technological plain called the web and it is with these faint reminders that I was able to temporarily sate my home-sickness.

Arabic music sites did eventually start emerging and one of the earliest I was told about was 6arab.com (the 6 represents the letter ط in the Arabic alphabet) which gave a - by those days' standards - huge music selection but all in Real Media player format unfortunately. I pondered often about this annoying choice since it meant I could not play these songs on my MP3 player and the quality was often terrible. I later reasoned that because the Internet connections were so slow in many parts of the Arabic world, it made sense to have it in a format that people could easily obtain. It also made commercial sense since bandwidth cost more money for hosting providers back then. To see the state of many sites as they were back then, you can use the Wayback archive on the Internet which lets you see websites as they existed since they first started. This is particularly handy for sites which no longer exist or which have been taken down by malicious activity. One of the first sites to offer some MP3-format songs was Mazika.com, a site which used to be my favourite till they started charging people money. It is still around but I find having to login and fiddle with card details extremely annoying. Currently, my favourite site has to be sawari.com, a site which lists only the Arab musicians worth mentioning and leaves out the ridiculous Rotana, Star academy-esque media monkeys. 

Like many expatriate Syrians my age I had little idea about how rich Arabic music was and the most one could expect with me was a deferential bob of the head as I listened to Umm Kalthoum or Abd el Halim (in short doses of course) but which were categorised as something I 'should' appreciate because they lived in black-and-white. As a nostalgic expatriate I was also expected, and happily obliged, with listening to Fairouz in the mornings. A wonderful time but anything more than that and I lost my frame of reference. To be very honest it hasn't been until the last two years, since beginning my Oud classes 12 months ago and since listening to al Sheikh Imam, that my interest in Arabic music widened and I grew to appreciate the full breadth of Arabic music. I began to realise how little I actually knew about it and how much pleasure could be gained by soaking in the words and the beautiful melodies. I now really do enjoy Abd el Haleem and Omm Kalthoum, as well as Fairouz, but in a way I could not have comprehended all those years ago. Sayid Makawi, Sheikh Imam, digressions with Fahd Balan and Samira Tawfiq. I discovered that Sabah was not just a woman who likes to marry younger men but that her voice was also amazing. I gradually learned to love Sabah Fakhry, and stopped associating him with the fat Syrian bourgeoise expats who only listened to him because he was 'Syrian'. In short, a wonderful new world opened to me and this coincided with the explosion of Arabic music sites which now offered much better quality downloads and for a wider variety of singers. Youtube is also amazing for just clicking away on a plethora of Arabic songs and you can now make sophisticated playlists of the songs you like to play in the background as you work, read or cook.

It is much nicer being an Arab expat online nowadays, home is a click away and the chatter of my fellow exiles is sometimes much more varied and interesting. I feel like an old grandfather, recalling the old days and seeing now how a huge city has been built, but with memories of the meadows or hills which once existed before everybody came and started living there. In some ways I am nostalgic for that special feeling which came when we managed to connect for the first time with other Arabs online, with discovering a great site on the Levant like Al Mashriq, or with finding that song that you absolutely 'had' to listen to and enjoying it on a tinny Real Audio player. On the other hand, I can't imagine going back to those solitary days where the only way you could communicate with back home was buying a phone card and making calls from the booths outside in the street whilst it was freezing cold. It is good to be an Arab online these days.

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A view from the Israeli military's perspective

Paul Wood from the BBC reported on a conference by a top Israeli military official. In contrast to all the fluffy pageantry of peace we are presented with on a daily basis, the view he has presented is sobre, uncomfortable - and real. When comfortable Arabs who can afford to own pretty things tell me, "Israel is here to stay" I know there is little useful in what they have to say. When I read the opening statement of this BBC article, I know the Israelis are serious:

Israelis sometimes say they can lose only one war. They worry that defeat could mean the destruction of their state.

It is also interesting to know that Jordan and Egypt are still considered enemies, which is a wise thing to do considering how quickly things can reverse in both those countries. As for the country's most serious threats, Iran is top of the list but I was surprised to see al-Qaeda on there. It could be there for the Americans; Sharon was quick to try to connect Israel's war against the Palestinian people with America's so-called "War on Terror" and if that is the case then it is not so surprising that he would include it on the list. The 'talks' which are said to be taking place now about a possible Syrian-Israeli peace agreement are dismissed and trivialised. Hezbullah is a mortal enemy of Israel and the fact that Syria continues to arm them whilst holding these talks means that it is not serious. He also called Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) a "chief with no Indians" who could lose the West Bank to Hamas should the Israelis stop supporting him.

The article also confirmed what many people already know, Israel will attack Lebanon again, and this time it will be much worse. This does not mean that they were not trying hard enough last time, only that lessons had now been learnt. While a politician can get away with painting defeat as victory or vice-versa, the army cannot afford such luxuries and when it has been beaten it ignores the lessons to its own peril. Sadly, these 'lessons' mean that the Israelis will just kill more people the next time they attack:

The damage to Lebanon wasn't enough to deter [Hezbollah last time]... when the terrorists become the government, the list of targets is longer

So the Lebanese government, following the purge of a few months back, is now composed of terrorists and Israel has lost its main partner on the inside. It also clearly insinuates that the policy of the Israeli military is that of collective-punishment, illegal under the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.

On another note, he was well aware of the ways that Iran could retaliate should Israel decide to attack and made the prudent observation that Iran can hurt the Americans in Iraq too. Note the cosying up of the Americans to Iran recently. All in all, to read something coming directly from the mouth of someone in the top levels of Israel's military establishment was interesting, but not because it contained anything new.

They are building their forces and are not yet ready to strike.

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"This country is seriously booming," says one of a group of young women in western clothes. "Everyone dresses up, the places are new, the roads are clean. We are not going to be third world for the rest of our life."

Lena Sinjab doesn't always write about Syrian intellectuals. Here she has found a group of women dressed "in western clothes". Can you believe it? In Syria? I called my mother to see if this could be true and she laughed and said "of course!". It seems that only yesterday my brother came home with his first pair of jeans. We slaughtered a sheep that night and there was much rejoicing.

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On fasting

Fasting. There is nothing a human being can do that is more powerful, enlightening and defiant than fasting. I've heard LSD comes close, but like all other drugs taken for recreation, it is the faux-spirituality of the weak. An enemy who thinks they can crush you is powerless when you decide on the simple act of fasting. Mahatma Ghandi and Bobby Sands both resisted power, oppression and injustice by resorting to fasting - they triumphed. Bhuddha reached enlightenment and glimpsed the beyond by fasting. Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert, besieged by falsehood and temptation, he came out of it an elevated man. The more I think of fasting, the more I see in it the triumph of the weak human being over her environment, over the earthly delights which alienate her from her true self. The point is not that you are tired, thirsty and hungry - it is in not minding. Only when you recognise this do you realise that these things are distractions which routinely cloud your thought and judgement. When you recognise the illusory nature of desire and temptation and that it is truly seperate, you begin to realise that there is a 'you' which is quite distinct from this shell you inhabit. Cogito ergo sum indeed, but I am not here to clash with skeptics, for me this disembodied 'you' that is capable of independent thought has a practical expression. To realise through fasting that the trappings of wealth are prisons rather than freedom gives the 'poor' dignity and the 'rich' humility. In a capitalist and material world centered around the morality of those who don't know any better we are enslaved by our own belongings and desires. I think there has never been a greater need nor urgency to break free than we have today. What do we have to lose apart from our chains?

Ramadan kareem to everyone...

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This is why I always encourage people to only snort 'Fairtrade' :

"I loved coke. I never did a lot, just a little bit at parties," said Mirren. "But what ended it for me was when they caught Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, in the early 80s. He was hiding in South America and living off the proceeds of being a cocaine baron. And I read that in the paper, and all the cards fell into place and I saw how my little sniff of cocaine at a party had an absolute direct route to this fucking horrible man in South America."

The ethics of liberal capitalism; the mob cheers on in approval.

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