tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91523998577206310802024-02-07T18:01:49.366-08:00Mariam Wissamto think is one thing, to write is another.Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-67256060259166828512015-06-23T15:34:00.001-07:002016-09-21T07:47:46.208-07:00in isolation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Ramadan Mubarak InshAllah.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I read what I wrote last year, and the year before and I couldn’t help but note a sense of melancholy and sadness that can only be explained by the general status of it all. Loss of homes, politicised social structures, temporality in one’s home, loss of meaning and worst of them all, loneliness.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This Ramadan I am still blessed with the above except that I now share this loss with another soul. A lost one I met coincidentally the last days of Ramadan 2014, and together we waged a war against ourselves until we both surrendered to the beautiful truth of ‘us’.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I still write in fragments as I mirror the mosaic of my thoughts, and I admit I have no desire in curating my piece like I do with art exhibitions; Find a common thread! Perhaps what is plaguing us to begin with as a collective is this obsessive need for everything to make sense together, when things can make most sense in isolation.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">so here are my isolated thoughts as they appear in my head and in no particular order:</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ISIS is evil, but what is the solution. Give up maryam give up mosul, give up Iraq its done.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Love is not overwhelming nor dramatic, its calm, its settled, its strange. I am not used to this feeling, what happened to all the old stories that destroyed my heart and broke me into pieces.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Home, home home home home home home home home</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">London, i miss London tonight, and yesterday, I missed it even this morning. Its always on my mind. Russell Square, I miss my walks there, I want to live in Angel again, I want that fake sense of belonging I had as a student resident there again.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maryam or Mariam? make up your mind already.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">immigration? Canada is too cold, and with their new laws, I am disappointed! second class citizens, really Canada? Really? I don’t want to leave the UAE, but it wants to leave me. I want to stay. Please </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">God let us stay.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lebanon is now the country my children will carry in their passports, and Iraq is the one they will carry in their tongues.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beirut and Baghdad, what is the link, what is the relationship? Think Maryam , think of something poetic to write on your wedding cards. Al Jawahiri and Jibran!</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rent, next year, Dubai or Abu Dhabi? I wish I could move back to Sharjah. Sharjah is simple, Sharjah is good, Sharjah is real.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Research, PhD, accomplishment, dreams, SOAS, SOAS, I miss academia, potentials, wasted talents.. Maryam write again</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wedding shoes: Check!</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I refuse to wear diamonds, I am the bride without a diamond ring or anything. I am morally and ethically against diamonds; society thinks I am weird. My husband will get heat for not ‘valuing’ me with diamonds. What happened to respecting values? Is this now my societal fight against norms? Have you been reduced to diamonds vs. no diamonds Maryam? ugh</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hungry people everywhere, hungry sad souls everywhere. displacement, dislocation, diaspora. My version of d3.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Art, exhibitions, the meaning of it all? expensive paintings, hungry artists, auction houses..</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pray, Fast, Read Quran.. Feel something Maryam feel.</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and will my wedding look ok? Will people like the food? I don’t want to hire a DJ, I want my nephew to play the music? What will people say about that? Again, another futile fight against nothing. Mundane</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will miss my parents warmth and home. I don’t want to leave home</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He loves me, especially different. tatata lalala * enter Jill scott song*</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">smile again at Dubai. Thank you for the breeze.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My annual excuse to write again to the public, away from hidden beautiful journals I buy from cities I inhabit or visit. Ramadan offers me the chance to indulge in the self, contrary to what the holy month encourages worshippers to do, I chose to indulge in the self sometimes.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I sit on my balcony tonight enjoying a sudden surprising breeze Dubai is offering me, in an attempt perhaps to reconcile with me after a long dispute over passports, residencies and rights to belong. I took her breeze and gave her a smile in return.</span></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-70457101582413617402015-01-25T11:13:00.003-08:002015-01-25T11:23:36.803-08:00Boxes underneath the sky <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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She wondered as she typed away letters on a grey screen what was the reasoning behind all the angst she felt. She wondered about the boxes she kept drawing around her; every time she would exit one, she draws another to step into.<br />
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She eventually learnt to draw doors and little windows, then by time she learnt to draw knobs and handles to open her boxes for little air. Continuing to live in them she found comfort with the contours that protected her from the ugly. She found solace in her convictions and comfort with one white pillow she kept from her childhood.<br />
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One day as she prepared to put her head on her pillow the lines started to disappear, and the wind blowing in her hair. She did not know how to react this sensation of the gushes of air playing with her well-protected pillowed hair, she did not know why her body, once contoured and protected was now exposed and unsheltered. She also did not understand why her reactions were not violent but serene.. calm and collected she was.<br />
She looked at the white lines leaving her, as her hair enjoyed a dance with the little wind that started to bother her. She did not know how to dance, but also knew that dancing was not another form of knowledge she needed to learn. She also knew it would rain soon, and the wind with the water will perform an orchestra that she only hoped she could enjoy.<br />
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Those lines that left her were no longer visible, breaking into several pieces and flying away with the wind; they no longer mattered. She looked for twigs, leaves and rocks to draw another box, to draw herself somewhere to belong. Instead she was left looking at an endless horizon of everything else.<br />
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She stood up and walked, holding her pillow in one hand and containing her hair in another. She walked towards nowhere. She loved those destination-free walks; but also smiled at her inability to reconcile her free-walks with her coveted squares.<br />
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She stumbled upon some sticks on the floor, and knew they resembled her long-lost lines. She looked at them and knew that for her to build that box again, she would need two hands, and will have to let go of her pillow and put it on the side.<br />
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She walked away, holding still to her white pillow in one hand, and her dancing hair with another. She left her boxes underneath the sky...<br />
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-91007058550783042952014-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:002014-11-29T12:29:11.974-08:00I left my Mask back in Venice .. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Masks... This idea of double realities has been on my mind all throughout this weekend, and I remember clearly that it was also on mind all throughout last year when I lived in Venice; a city known for its two-faceted beauty. A city of masks..<br />
I thought of masks this weekend and lingered at the thought of performances. I was reminded of the saying of how the world was indeed a stage, and we are merely actors in it.<br />
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<a href="https://soundcloud.com/because/luz-casal-historia-de-un-amor">A pleasant conversation</a>, that is how it started. A wooden floor where my feet touched every now and then in an awkward attempt to stay grounded. I lifted my feet eventually and crawled up on a dark grey couch. A pleasant conversation that ended up with a flattering accusation. You know those? The compliments that could easily be twisted in the heart of your mind to accusations. I was told I was a good story-teller; you know the ones you encounter in parties and gather around. The ones that steal all the stars at night and become the centre of light. I was told I was 'always' a story-teller, never the occasional bystander, or the one with feet on the ground. I then lowered my red-manicured feet to touch the wooden floor, only to lift them up again.<br />
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I was also told that I was a dreamer, and that the mask I was wearing, was wearing off. I was told all of these and more in one sentence, maybe they were two. I teared a little at the fear of being the party entertainer, and laughed more at the audacity of it all.<br />
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How can one not see the great big eyes? How can one miss the <i>huzun</i> that is in my trembling thin lips when I speak of life, home, love and God? How can mistake my laughter with jokes, and miss all the the efforts of reconciliation? How can one not love the contradictions of attempted veils and chocolate-covered almonds next to my training gloves? How can one not understand the complexities behind a gentle smile hiding behind it stories of stolen homes and broken hearts?<br />
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And all those implications behind those kind little gestures, how does one mistake them for performances? When has it become that kindness and tenderness are difficult to fathom, and cold shoulders are the norm? What happened to all the lovely cushions that cover our insecurities?<br />
Where is that fascination of her husky voice at night? The night that sees the end of all alleged performances, and signals the beginning of her surrender.<br />
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Masks are beautiful, and to pretend that we don't all wear different ones everyday is exhausting. We all perfected wearing our masks, that we hardly notice them anymore. We are the polite, we are the courteous, we are the brave, and we are the happy. Masks! They are all masks.<br />
I left my mask along with a hundred others in Venice long before we had this conversation. I no longer perform any roles but mine, and I lost the script of my life that night in London, when I whispered <i>Hamdula</i> and ran away from my solace and the bench that witnessed the end of who I used to be.<br />
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Scene II ends.//<br />
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At first, there was one.. Then there were too many. Reconcile my love, there will be only one at the end.<br />
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-90899481604648291622014-09-21T11:33:00.002-07:002014-09-21T11:33:40.006-07:00Pixels <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="line-height: 16.3090915679932px;">She didn't live with him, she never did. He knew that she could easily be a segment of his imagination. NO: she is just an imagined temporary homeland, a mirage of a woman that only exists within the binaries of his own mind, and self. </span></div>
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She never lived with him, in fact, he hardly felt her presence, he only knew her voice and her laughter which he became so accustomed to. Her image, pixelated through a screen on an old machine that he still claimed his.
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The same image, saved, and rehashed in so many different ways on his devices. Her with an orange shirt, her smiling, swimming, laughing, kissing the screen, driving, eating, frowning, and that one with her innocent eyes looking at him, staring back at his hunger. </div>
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She doesn't live with him, yet she manages to take over everything. She takes over his sofa, where he sat for hours speaking to her wired image, and voice. His bed smells of her. How? he keeps asking himself, that smell he knows so little off. The bed that longed for her, but never touched her, smells of her. </div>
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His knife, that he proudly used once trying to master a dish she knew how to make , is now tempted to call her, and ask her for guidance. <span style="line-height: 16.3090915679932px;">His blue shirt, that she once loved, is now hers. Everytime he wears it, he remembers her exaggerated flattery. He will not wear that shirt anymore. </span></div>
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He speaks to himself, the self that he often ignores, and tells him that he tried, and she didn't. He wanted, but she left. He tries to convince him, debates him, angry at him he sometimes screams. But the self just keeps quite, he knows that his attempts are futile, that his scenarios are lies, that his self knows that he gave her no choice, he knows it, but fights him with all the strength he knows he has.
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<span style="line-height: 16.3090915679932px;">He fights for his own as her memory slowly becomes his life. </span></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-1242402506316802962014-06-10T13:55:00.000-07:002014-06-10T13:55:16.002-07:00The Last 12 hours in Mosul: Conflicting Narratives <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">In the last 24 hours,
Iraq has witnessed a major development in its politics. Headlines in Arabic
media was quick to frame this as <i>suqoot </i>سقوط Mosul city, which roughly
translates to the <i>Fall</i> of Mosul city allegedly in the arms of ISIS or
ISIL, The</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #252525;"> Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant</span><span style="color: black;">, a globally-recognised
insurgent active group with ties to <i>Al Qaeda. </i>This terminology is very
reminiscent of the framing of the news on Baghdad on the 9th April 2003, when
Baghdad was officially captured by American troops. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Images circulating on
the web shows burnt Iraqi Army vehicles and army clothes on the streets
of the city in a sign of the defeat of the Army after almost 4 days of clashes
with the armed groups. </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Two Iraqi army officers said security forces
had received orders to leave the city after militants managed to capture the
Ghizlani army base in southern Mosul and set more than 1000 prisoners from
different high-security prisons around the city. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">On Monday, the governor
of Mosul Atheel Al Nujaifi made a public plea to the people of the city to
fight militants, before he escaped the provincial headquarters in Mosul. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Almost all media
narratives both global and local have called for international action against
what could be a catastrophic regression in the current affairs of Iraq. After
All, Mosul is not only the largest city in Iraq, but it is also in close proximity
to Irbil and the Kurdish borders, which in result risks the spill of violence
to the relatively-peaceful Kurdish region in Iraq. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">With the escalating
headlines and developments in Iraq, one is faced with conflicting stories and
on-ground testimonials from Iraqis in the city that stayed behind and could not
flee the city. Reasons for that are many including the closure of the
Kurdish borders for some time which forced families to go back to their homes.
Upon their return, and according to several Iraqis I spoke to who prefer to
remain un-named, they were welcomed by the militants who assured them that the
city was accessible and safe, with a sense of ownership to the place: “ Of
course you can come back, please feel free to go wherever you want, no one will
stop you.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Many facebook statuses
and tweets then started documenting Mosul post-capture, in a surprising twist
to usual media narratives on ISIS’s politics in sieged cities. Reports that
only army vehicles and headquarters were burnt and destroyed, but barricades
that once adorned every street were removed, and for the first time as one
facebook user claims “ I managed to drive freely in my city”. Other residents
also claimed that the armed groups were helping young men patrol and protect their
neighbourhoods from any possible looting, and were active in protecting banks,
abandoned homes and roads.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Interesting testimonials from several residents in Mosul which clash with the
main narrative circulated in Media that the city is in fact in more danger than
it used to be. Several political analysts on Iraqi non-governmental TV channels
claimed that this ‘dignified treatment of civilians’ is something they are
pleasantly surprised with and also prefer to what they described as a continuous
dehumanisation and humiliation of the Iraqi Army in checkpoints around the
city. This could be very much understood as sectarian bias against the army,
but it also serves as an indication that the armed-groups are indeed not
targeting civilians in the city (yet). </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Many other ‘rumours’ are
also circulating on social media platforms, some argue that the armed groups
are in fact a group of revolutionary iraqis led by members of the old Iraqi
Army, and is in process to ‘free’ the country from the current regime and the control
of the Iran-backed government. Several ISIS twitter accounts proclaiming the
end of Sykes-Picot in an alarming signal that this could indeed mean - if not
immediate - the redrawing of the region map. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Now Al Maliki urged the
Parliament to consider this an emergency state, and the Iraqi Parliament in an
act of “urgency” decided to meet on Thursday to discuss the much-needed
solutions for this catastrophic development in Iraq. With the speed of events
in the country, and the clear inability of the army and the police to protect
civilians and the city; the next couple of days could see the seizure of other
smaller but crucial cities in Iraq, such as Salahudeen, Samara and perhaps even
reaching the borders of the capital Baghdad.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">The expected reactions
from the central government could very well mirror the assaults on Fallujah and
other cities in Iraq that have been under siege and attack for more than 6
months. Especially now that Al Maliki has asked for international support from
the UN and the EU and Arab League in an attempt to ‘cleanse’ the cities from
the insurgents. The government will probably use all kinds of weapons and means
without counting for civilian casualties, like the cases in Fallujah and other
cities in Iraq. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">In an undeniable timely-events,
with the results of the Iraqi elections, this could very well mean the ‘need’
to assert Maliki’s position as Prime Minister for the next 4 years; to rid the
country from terrorism. It could also possibly mean the eradication of the
second-largest city in Iraq and the eruption of sectarian violence and war. The
next couple of days and arguably hours are quite critical and detrimental in
the current power-play in the region. Narratives are indeed changing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-75644420315941957352014-04-26T12:42:00.002-07:002014-04-26T12:45:42.959-07:00Il libro bianco <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
If you have spoken to me several times, and if we had happened to discuss writing, drawing, painting and art you would have heard me speak about the fear of the white canvas, and the white paper. I take pride in taking ownership of that fear, of perhaps mastering it so much that it has become one of my powers. </div>
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My fear of white canvases and empty screens is now my power. I have mastered it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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You enter my room, it is all white. White curtains, and white sheets signal new beginnings every day, and emptiness the nights that follow. My relationship to white has always been troubled. </div>
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<br /></div>
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If you have known me, and had the chance to see one of my journals you will also realise that none of them are white. I always write on beige paper avoiding the perpetual whiteness that is there. The lines have to always be there, they ground me.<br />
<br />
Let there always be lines. </div>
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I have journals filled with writings and notes from the early age of 10. In Sharjah, Dubai, London, Venice and Rome. I have journal entries with coffee stains in Paris, and one I remember writing on a pavement in brussels. </div>
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I have scribbled a lot but on lined papers hidden together in secret journals that I take everywhere with me only to keep under my pillow at night.</div>
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I write in my journals and look at the white screen everyday. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I counted the words I have written in my journal so far, ( 1, 2, 3, 10, 100, 5040), and appreciated every letter I had to count with my pencil and my mouth, oh the pleasure and the plight of the ol' fashioned ways. </div>
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I decided I will publish some of my writings in Italy, and some others about my time in Iraq. Perhaps also write a little about my natural move back to the capital of the only home I have known. I decided I will spend the next months or so, resisting my fear rather than combating it once and for all. </div>
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<br /></div>
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resist temptation mari(y)am, don't kill it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-54398871140418521542013-10-22T10:15:00.001-07:002013-10-22T10:15:08.474-07:00That Wooden Bench<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEmryGilwas7-Nx1RPa41Q0SHz2SKQkFE-fvSDsRpX9vqs5DHbHmYxN1QK7qlYdDFBwyRiHTMWqvU1ky4RunXlCKuvEOHd0RG4kgeYwMw1HAPLf-LyFeP7lDuikcPi0aoC49kzPMCNds/s1600/bench.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVEmryGilwas7-Nx1RPa41Q0SHz2SKQkFE-fvSDsRpX9vqs5DHbHmYxN1QK7qlYdDFBwyRiHTMWqvU1ky4RunXlCKuvEOHd0RG4kgeYwMw1HAPLf-LyFeP7lDuikcPi0aoC49kzPMCNds/s320/bench.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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After the last two years, I really did not think I would be
spending this Ramadan outside of the comfort of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adhaan </i>( Call for prayers), the family gatherings, and the fuss
over what to cook for Iftar. I remember distinctively writing about Ramadan in
London last year for the Art Dubai blog, thinking to myself, next time, I will
have nothing to write about, my experience will be just like everybody else’s
in Dubai.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fast-forward a year later and here I am in a city I never
imagined I’d ever reside in, a city of narrow canals, and foot traffic that is
in its essence, a city that struggles to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ramadan this year came with an official
warning from the Italian media of the impending heat wave that will hit the
country; a heat wave that media claim has no parallels in the last 10
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not a pretty weather, with
structures too old to handle Air Conditioning, and alleys so narrow for
ventilation, Venice in the summer is a difficult city. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Venice in Ramadan, is almost impossible. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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With 50,000 residents give or take, I did not really expect
to fast with fellow Muslims from the community here, neither did I anticipate
paper crescents adorning the lamp posts, but I expected that the spiritual fasting
would be the most difficult given that I am now living in Italy, a country that
aims to satisfy quite literally all of your senses. But no, I actually was
challenged physically to the point that I did not even imagine I could fast;
the heat, humidity, long hours of the day and the walking everywhere were not
easy; never in my life did I feel that Ramadan was exhausting physically until
I moved to Venice. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I spent a couple of days fussing over my body, and when I
took control of it, I took a glance at my heart and smiled at my foolishness in
focusing on the ritual rather than the worship. I walked every morning trying
to find ways in which I can be spiritual; I thought of sitting on a bench in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Giardini</i> facing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grand Canale </i>and mediating a little; but mosquitoes found their way
to my legs, arms and face and it did not feel spiritual at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I tried to sit on my couch and read Quran or watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moez Masood</i> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9152399857720631080#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>speak
of faith and God but these setting were interrupted by the most-needed showers
during the day to cool off. What I believed would be tears this year over my
beautiful Quran pages, were actually drops of sweat that just made the whole
experience simply uncomfortable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I really was not feeling the spirituality. I even fetched
dates from Dubai with me to feel closer to home, made some lentil soup which
Mom always makes sure is on our Iftaar table, but nothing worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until that morning I left Arsenale where I
work and went to buy some stationary for the office only to be stopped by the
crowds of people weeping standing in front of the church in Via Garibaldi,
saying goodbye to a wooden coffin carried by sad strong men. I couldn’t believe
it at first, it felt like a scene off a movie; the sounds of people crying was
too loud, and the silence of the street was too quite. I stood there and stared
at that coffin for as long as I could, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I
wondered who was in it, and what has happened, and what life did he/she lead. I
kept staring until I felt my tears cooling off my burnt cheeks. I looked around
me fearing for a second that they will figure out that I was an imposter, but
my tears were too real. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The crowds of mourners started going inside the church and I
couldn’t help but follow. I sat there with them along with my tears, they
prayed together, I prayed alone but all under one roof. At that moment, I
forgot that I had a scarf on my head, and a Quran application on my phone, I
only thought of God, and His glory, and this short-lived, almost trivial life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I stayed for a while inside on the wooden bench, with closed
eyes I tried to find that spirituality again. Yes, there are no mosques in
Venice, but there are houses of God, and at that point I knew I was the closest
to Him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I left the church and the mourners alone, and walked slowly
back to work thinking of the next Ramadan, praying I would live to witness it.
Ramadan is somehow a harsh reminder of Death; there is that sense of relief at
the end of it that I had lived through it all, and a genuine fear that I will
not live to witness the next one. That wooden coffin accelerated all of these
feelings usually stretched out over a month in few minutes. That wooden coffin
was my reminder of what Ramadan really meant. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am not sure what I will write for Art Dubai next year on
Ramadan, somehow I wish that I will be in Dubai with family, but I also have a
feeling that I might be somewhere else. It doesn’t matter really where I am, as
long as I am somewhere to witness it again. And pray for Him in all his glory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9152399857720631080#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Egyptian
television and radio presenter, religious leader and activist who focuses on
the fields of spirituality, inter-faith dialogue, and Islam in the modern
world.</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i>* <span style="font-size: x-small;">Originally Posted on Art Dubai Blog: http://www.artdubai.ae/blog/that-wooden-bench/</span></i></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-82817058133059118272013-07-04T16:37:00.001-07:002013-07-04T16:59:41.265-07:00Just one thought for now | The Venice Diaries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b> </b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjiPuA_jpZEDQ_Vn7UYBJor9vcy5uEIVtllIuZchzgDk8RhtXsSE6MPyZ3i5IUIJ3Q688fbTxyj_uY_1fZo5tWMHS4hq2v7E3GnH-u-WegksjyZ3YYJKiWB54k05asVywtQusn-aSgiw/s619/Screen+Shot+2013-07-05+at+1.24.18+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLjiPuA_jpZEDQ_Vn7UYBJor9vcy5uEIVtllIuZchzgDk8RhtXsSE6MPyZ3i5IUIJ3Q688fbTxyj_uY_1fZo5tWMHS4hq2v7E3GnH-u-WegksjyZ3YYJKiWB54k05asVywtQusn-aSgiw/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-05+at+1.24.18+AM.png" width="313"></a></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Its
been more than 50 days in Venezia, my new home for this year. A city so
beautiful that at some point you realise that your attempts at capturing its
beauty on camera are futile; Photos will not immortalise these visual
masterpieces. A city so different from everything else you have known, a
feeling that pushes you to renegotiate everything you learnt about living in
cities around the world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Venezia
is not Dubai, not London, and Venezia is certainly not Baghdad. I found solace
in cities I have lived in before in their streets that smell like home,
platters of food from cuisines similar to mother’s cooking, but here, I found
no traces that I can cling on. A stranger in a city filled with strangers from
around the world. Thousands of tourists flock this city during the day almost paralysing
mobility on the narrow calles “alleys”; you cannot walk, and you cannot avoid
being the random stranger in someone else’s photographed memories. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
When
I first arrived I was overwhelmed with the opening of the exhibition I have
been working on for the past 6 months that I missed out on the tiny detail of
me moving into another city, changing locations and addresses. At first, I
caught myself rushing to capture photos of the different yet similar canals
around the city and stealing glances at major landmarks in the hopes of making
the best out of my time, but as soon as the exhibition opened, and the work
slowed down, I realized that I was indeed not in a hurry to be a tourist in
Venice because I was simply not one. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
At
first, Dubai did not leave me. I found myself waking up almost every morning
worrying that I have overslept, miscalculated the time it will take me to reach
work, worried about traffic and other things metropolis. It is a strange process
to divorce your senses from elements that you cannot control; traffic, car
accidents, and half-empty petrol tanks , to be faced with the reality that your
body is now under your control, completely. A funny and scary process at times;
there is no valid excuse for not showing up anymore. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I am
still trying to understand the city I call home today, coming up with different
theories on what it represents, what It feels like, how it marks me.. Several
conclusions rushed to my head in the first two weeks of my time here, one that
was evident is that Venice is not a city for the lonely hearts. I never really
perceived Venice to be romantic, in fact, I think it is the complete opposite
of that, a city so busy with tourists blocking your way most of the time, that
there is seldom any romance left for the others. Gondolas are public, expensive
and for someone like me with serious motion sickness, they are not ideal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWulZD7kowFw_t8YprRzfzWBpdHeELEtkgC8o9yd-t6I8giG6Ya4nfGjUpJwO7Ok4KZDRNhfA5XohhfypDD3z7wG3pOBuclxLRJyaLBmjKK3RtssmiBHi12AB9NzT_jynw3K79EezBJI/s612/Screen+Shot+2013-07-05+at+1.30.15+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOWulZD7kowFw_t8YprRzfzWBpdHeELEtkgC8o9yd-t6I8giG6Ya4nfGjUpJwO7Ok4KZDRNhfA5XohhfypDD3z7wG3pOBuclxLRJyaLBmjKK3RtssmiBHi12AB9NzT_jynw3K79EezBJI/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-05+at+1.30.15+AM.png" width="318"></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Still,
Venice at night is something else. The tourists leave, the locals sleep and
then there are people like me, wandering but not lost, looking around,
breathing in the moist, the breeze and the silence. It becomes so quite that
you can hear your own breath as you sigh for relief walking in one of its
narrow alleys. You see your moon shadow, you know the one we lost in our rush
to kill the moon. You feel human again,
with a city built with human dimensions in mind; you are no longer small.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<o:p><br></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
yet, there is this underlying overwhelming sense that you are a burden walking
in this city alone. The alleys were created narrow enough to fit one person at
times, but mostly wide enough for two people to walk together. Alleys are
intimate, and your shadow is not intimate enough. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
it is because of that that I feel Venice is the perfect place for me to be in
right now. I am a girl with a lonely heart, and this heart needs to be
challenged in a city that strives to counter all of my heart’s arguments on the
beauty of beating on its own. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
And
in the words of Henry James who argued that:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span style="color: #333333;">The deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded,
or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place
could give. But such people came for themselves, as we seem to see them - only
with the egotism of their grievances and the vanity of their hopes.</span><o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
There
is so much to write about, nothing new, nothing you have not heard before about
the city, and no new visual discoveries that have not been exploited in
souvenir shops. No, but there is Mariam in Venice, and that is certainly new. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br></div>
Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-89463207754129854062013-02-06T07:42:00.000-08:002013-02-06T07:49:18.998-08:00There is Something About Sharjah <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-tqbg9fY5v303s-PFgJ_fQ-DzjVIZNjg9mAd2FKdFgQxFdS6JZz7rb-DF973vwrRdTVh97NqbIG3DLERVoJPZuoXmcGWgSDYkd9S3vABhWRzx2ltR0IYypSz3HFqXxkiznBZEXgrEZk/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-tqbg9fY5v303s-PFgJ_fQ-DzjVIZNjg9mAd2FKdFgQxFdS6JZz7rb-DF973vwrRdTVh97NqbIG3DLERVoJPZuoXmcGWgSDYkd9S3vABhWRzx2ltR0IYypSz3HFqXxkiznBZEXgrEZk/s1600/photo+2.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
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“There is something about Sharjah”, that’s how I usually
answer curious questions about the city that is most often referred to as the
city next to Dubai. Indeed, there is something about this city that hosts more
than 15 museums, the home of Sharjah biennial, and its own little canal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sharjah, a city often misunderstood because of the traffic
leading to it from Dubai and other northern emirates during rush hours. A city
that is somehow left unappreciated and unnoticed, or rather undiscovered. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is pedestrian life in Sharjah; the kind that sees its
locals walking its streets, and running their errands without the need of a car
sometimes. A city with so many falafel and shawerma shops in one street, one is
often left puzzled on which parlous serves the best sandwich. There is also the
Cornish, and the buildings surrounding it, that saw the settlement of many Arab
expat families that decided long ago that Sharjah is their home, even if it
meant commuting for hours in the early morning to another city for work. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sharjah is this city, and more. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNFGCsevqV1W9rBVD8KaRoj4p0CcAyCTRs57I4rbeho0C8w67k4LJPHd1YWoG81uu-_Rv26kj1KdtiwD0r3cIM1YL6hUg9GOmub45tTODdZbN9U8rAUno47A8ZkIgAc_Iqy1CfLmVgrEE/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNFGCsevqV1W9rBVD8KaRoj4p0CcAyCTRs57I4rbeho0C8w67k4LJPHd1YWoG81uu-_Rv26kj1KdtiwD0r3cIM1YL6hUg9GOmub45tTODdZbN9U8rAUno47A8ZkIgAc_Iqy1CfLmVgrEE/s1600/photo+3.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Al Qasba </td></tr>
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There is so much to say about this city that saw my first
steps, and first memories in its parks and busy streets, a city that changed
dramatically in the last 15 years but never really lost its essence along the
way. It still has its chaotic street structures that see small shops and
parlours blossoming organically around the city, without a forced aesthetic
standard from the government to abide by. An element of ‘real’ that reminds you
of old(er) cities in the Middle East: Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. You can find
elements of resemblance that often leave a sense of comfort within its diverse
Arab diasporic groups. Yes, cabs stop randomly on roundabouts sometimes to pick
up the random passenger, traffic jams happen for no reason at times and make you wonder. And there are the ports facing the Museum of Contemporary Art,
blue and brown ships from East Africa, India and Iran greet artists and
curators as they walk the arts area in downtown Sharjah looking for
inspiration. Spice and textile markets beside contemporary art installations create
a contrast that actually makes sense. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Sharjah is this city, and more. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When Salem Al Qassimi and I started organizing Pecha Kucha
night in Sharjah, I knew that the reasons were beyond shedding the light on
exciting projects and ideas by Sharjah natives, it was also to stress on
the inspiration that this city provokes without the traffic bias that often
fogs percpetions about it. Pecha Kucha was always concerned with the
alternative underground ideas that often see light in small cozy gatherings of
creatives; like Sharjah that is often celebrated intellectually and
artistically by people who truly appreciate its urban realism. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The event is set in Maraya Art Centre : A space for the
young and old in the city to meet, greet and create. Colorful <i>Majlis</i>-seating on the floor, green walls
and blackboards with chalk-documented calendar events; very reflective of the
city itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This event is my way of manifesting “there is something
about Sharjah” into action; through series of 20-seconds slides by participants,
almost as long as it takes to truly appreciate this city and what it holds. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The first Pecha Kucha night in Sharjah will be organized in
Maraya Art Centre at al Qasba, on the 9<sup>th</sup> February at 20:20 PM. Come,
and see for yourself what I mean. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For more information:<br />
<a href="http://www.pechakucha.org/cities/sharjah">http://www.pechakucha.org/cities/sharjah</a><br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/510794802277005/?fref=ts">https://www.facebook.com/events/510794802277005/?fref=ts<o:p></o:p></a></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-20813311156218349462012-12-31T02:15:00.000-08:002012-12-31T02:30:28.783-08:00"So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfknLuUw5fhqfMvBlyxfmPlS2s5A68GgIEWuVirjpVYFa_o9jB31Ln5ZmTTMIVUhv5nP3KXnhT6Tt2DhGydPqdhDsDd-Er0930MA5zDoeV-VYIGm9oZrKiimi1Hxe3FM8oZBlNSlddr7w/s1600/meee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfknLuUw5fhqfMvBlyxfmPlS2s5A68GgIEWuVirjpVYFa_o9jB31Ln5ZmTTMIVUhv5nP3KXnhT6Tt2DhGydPqdhDsDd-Er0930MA5zDoeV-VYIGm9oZrKiimi1Hxe3FM8oZBlNSlddr7w/s320/meee.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It has been a fictional year to the say the least, so fictional that even writing about it seems hard at a time when I myself find difficulty in convincing my mind that what I went through was real, not a wild segment of my imagination, nor a chapter drafted by Pamuk, or Plath. </div>
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A year that included but was not exclusive to: being stranded, almost homeless in a city so cold, a city I once called home. </div>
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A year that included but was not exclusive to: first times, last times and repeated disappointments. </div>
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A year that included but was not exclusive to: rejections, shattered dreams and loss of meaning. </div>
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2012 was indeed a fictional year for me. I should have taken a hint at how it started, with serious negotiations with the self, and God. Endless meaningless conversations about existence, and futile attempts to lure the evil into the good side, and rest the binaries between the colors white, and black. I should have understood in January last year that this year was not going to be good. But I don't give up, I am one of those that survive against their own will, persevere against all odds, and stand up when all they want to do, is fall apart. </div>
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I should have known that night by the river Thames when I laughed so hard, that temporary happiness is no happiness at all. It bears the consequences of sad tomorrows, and constructed, often exaggerated memories of an otherwise, mundane moment. </div>
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I should have known in February when my attempts at performing an Iraqi identity, a feminine approach to Baghdad and what I believed then was its manifestations, failed. I should have known that 2012 was alarming when I was left stranded in an island, alone, with pieces of torn paper and a dry pen. </div>
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I should have known..</div>
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March comes, and with it leaves Spring, in a perfect harmony with my withered heart then. I come back to Dubai to find its skies white, its air heavy and its people sad that the good weather was gone. A weather I missed, stranded in England and its cold brutal weather. </div>
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Applications flooded, pleas for support, attempts to be recognized in any geography in the world, a passport so banal yet powerful enough to take over my dreams, make them impossible. Pieces of paper, stapled together, flavored by never-ending colonial powers, stamped by puppet governments; an Iraqi nationality that is divorced from any sense of noble nationalism, or loyalty. That was April for me, a month where a milestone was supposedly achieved, just because it happens that I was born that month. </div>
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I should have known when May came with another set of questions, that have no answer, with pain that is unfathomed, and disappointments that left my mind wondering; now what? </div>
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I should have known it was not going to be ok, or perhaps It would: lets rise again Maryam. </div>
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Summer comes and goes, with stolen moments of laughter and joy as I walk down the aisles of SOAS, celebrating my success and the friends I made along the way. I think to myself, this is a good day, not a good year, but a very good day. Hamdula..</div>
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The year begins to end, and my heart flutters at the possibility of new chapters, or perhaps a new book, let's throw this one behind. No lets keep it, it is because of these moments that I have become. Or is this what I try to tell myself? Could it be that suffering is useless?</div>
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2 months ago, I stood alone looking at a broken watch in my hand, an actual watch that belonged to another restless wrist, and laughed a little on the irony of it all. There I was, standing still while the whole of Dubai moved around me, the breeze was just getting to change to acceptable, and the burdens were about to get lighter. There were random walks on the beach during sunrise, echoing laughter on familiar balconies, and that watch, left on my palm, remind me yet harshly again that those moments of pure joy, were indeed, out of time. I now keep this watch in a museum I built, mimicking Pamuk's museum of innocence, but mine is not innocent at all. </div>
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I should have known, but even if I did, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I left this year with a faith that <span class="s1">إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا</span><i> </i> <i>(<span class="s2">So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief). </span></i>2013 must be the year that challenges this one, a year that counters all the performances of identity that failed and the attempts of reconciliation that bears witness to my own shortcomings. </div>
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Facebook's year in retrospect displays my images smiling, graduating, laughing, and posing in front of Galata bridge in Istanbul, and SOAS in London. It does not however display the written above, because Facebook is funny this way; we select the moments we want to share with Zuckerberg, the world and the secret services, and they are often constructed notions of a life we would like ourselves to believe we lead. </div>
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At the end of this year, I am reminded of an old Iraqi song,"<span class="s3">ماكو</span> <span class="s3">عتاب</span> <span class="s3">و</span> <span class="s3">لوم</span> .. <span class="s3">بس</span> <span class="s3">السلام</span> <span class="s3">يدوم</span>" <i>There is no blame after all, let the peace last</i>..</div>
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happy<span class="s3"> </span>2013,<span class="s3"> </span>I<span class="s3"> </span>know<span class="s3"> </span>for<span class="s3"> </span>me - <span class="s3">ارتاحت الروح -</span><i><span class="s3"> </span>my<span class="s3"> </span>soul<span class="s3"> </span>is at peace. </i></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-36380044423005387432012-12-30T03:10:00.001-08:002012-12-31T02:16:31.986-08:00Notes on the Iraqi Spring, and the last day(s) of 2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Below are some of my notes and observations on the recent uprisings in Iraq, in what is now being called the #iraqispring. I believe it is important to document these observations so that they allow for revisited posts analysing in details the changes in the political in Iraq. </i></div>
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30th December- : Today marks the 7 year anniversary of the death of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi leader. Today also marks the day before the last of the year 2012, and the 9th day of the ongoing protests in Iraq against the rule of Al Maliki, the current Iraqi prime minster. </div>
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Today is indeed an interesting day to be monitoring social media platforms and view the dynamics of posting and commenting from Iraqis world wide, who are either engaging in hot debates about the nature and causes of the recent uprisings in <i><a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Anbar_Province">Al Anbar</a>,</i> the largest province in Iraq , or commenting on the plight of Iraqis after the death of Saddam Hussein. There are those also contesting the idolization of the former president taking shape in Facebook posts and twitter hashtags that celebrate his life, and mourn his death. </div>
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Many posts on Iraq found on twitter and Facebook are linking directly between the protests happening nowadays to the death of Saddam Hussein, and trying to create a narrative that sees both events as cause-effect. This is deducted from posts that argue that 7 years after his execution, Iraq has become worse, hence the protests are a natural result of the deteriorating conditions of Iraqis both inside and outside Iraq. </div>
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These protests that Iraq is witnessing are proving to be quite different from the previous attempts by Iraqis to contest the status quo. I have written before that in 2011, and inspired by the events that took place in Egypt, Tunisia, and other countries in the Middle East, a Facebook page was created to encourage Iraqis to revolt against the current regime, and abhor immediately all of its attempts to divide the country on basis of sect and religion. The Facebook page <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Iraq7?fref=ts">"<span class="s1">The Iraqi revolution"</span></a> kept encouraging protests and civil disobedience, and recording all the incidents where number of Iraqis were seen protesting in Baghdad, Mosul and recently Al Anbar. </div>
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At times that did not witness any civil protests per say, the page kept posting about the government's wrong doings, and encouraging participation online in discussing and contesting the political situation in Iraq. The page also mimicked the famous solidarity campaign with Palestinian prisoners, to show support to Iraqi prisoners that are suffering from inhumane conditions and unlawful trials. </div>
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Two weeks ago, and with the recent government's tactics in attacking <i>Sunni</i> parliament members, and the news on the conditions of Iraqi women in prisons, the page started calling again for a <i>revolution, </i>specifically calling on the honour, and chivalry of Iraqi men in light of the violations against women in prisons; rape, torture and unlawful imprisonment. </div>
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The revolution became a necessity to protect the honour of Iraqi women, Iraq's narrative itself changed from protesting the status quo, to defending the lost honour of iraqis worldwide. </div>
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In the context of the East, more specifically the Middle East and Iraq, toying with words like Honour, and integrity can be quite daring to say the least. It poses a threat on the broadly-defined masculinity, and invites serious 'protection' of the allegedly forsaken honour. The posts in the Iraqi groups encouraging the protests were all inviting 'men' to protect their 'sisters' and 'daughters' from the government's injustice, posting photos of the tortured and raped victims and posing the rhetorical question of : " what if she was your sister?". </div>
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This is arguably intended to provoke a sense of anger and entitlement to Iraq's women, creating what I contend is a community imagined just like Benedict Anderson theorised, where the Iraqi man is obliged to protect the honour of all Iraqi women, like they were his sisters, and daughters. The Iraqi woman in this context became one of the symbols of the uprisings; saving her consequently means saving Iraq. </div>
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It is also interesting that at these times that call for the protection of the 'woman' in Iraq, India sees its own version of the protests, in light of the <i>Delhi</i> rape victim that died recently. Social media platforms were flooding with posts about the status of women worldwide, and the rape that took place in India provoked serious questioning of plight of women world wide. However, and from my own personal observation of the reactions recorded on new media, there was an ideal missed opportunity to link those two events together, almost denying the significance of the feminist discourse in the political; Both India and Iraq revolted for women worldwide. </div>
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<i>The Iraqi Spring</i> as the protestors and online activists are calling it, is proving to be quite detrimental in contemporary Iraqi politics. Many are attributing its success to the fact that global news channels are actually covering the events, contrary to previous attempts by Iraqis that did not make it to headline news. One of the activists messaged me on twitter citing his excitement that <i>Al Jazeera</i> channel finally decided to " interrupt their continuos coverage of Egypt, and shed light on the protests ongoing in Al Anbar." </div>
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This reliance on media for the success of any protest and attempted coup poses serious questions about the 'imagined' role of old and new media in the Middle East, and invite serious investigation of the uses of media worldwide. </div>
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Iraqi news channels were also celebrated on social media platforms for covering the events and offering a platform for the activists to voice their opinions outside the 'online realm'. Channels such as Al Baghdadiya, Al Rafidayn and Al Mosoliya are amongst the channels leading in covering the uprisings in Iraq. Al Sharqiya channel, most popular amongst Iraqis worldwide is now condemned by activists that are calling for its boycott for failing to cover the protests. Facebook posts are calling on <i>Al Bazzaz</i>, owner of Al Sharqiya to explain the lack of media coverage on the events. </div>
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This is indeed an interesting moment in Iraq's contemporary history, where the extension of the political contestation from the online to the offline has actually started to echo globally. The role of media in creating the narrative of the protests is crucial, and a serious understanding of its dynamics is needed to fully absorb the changes in the political and social spheres. </div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-8044358530805266372012-08-09T15:40:00.001-07:002012-08-09T15:51:05.274-07:00Googling Ramadan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">It was warm, the kind of warm you'd appreciate
after living in London for a while, a warm long july day in 2011, which was
also the first day of Ramadan, and my first ramadan away from the east. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I remember all the conversations that led to
that day about what seemed to be the impossibility of fasting the long hours of
the day; not accustomed to the European summer, I found it difficult at first
to grasp the idea that fasting 17 hours a day would be possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I didn't think of the fact that life during
Ramadan in London would resume as normal, and how the smell of coffee,
cigarettes and bread would be hovering in the air I breath. I forgot that in
London, unlike other cities I've witnessed Ramadan in, the majority would not
be fasting, I forgot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I also did not think that when it was time to
break the fast, I wouldn't have my TV turned on Sharjah TV channel with their
famous <i>iftar</i> ritual every year, in fact, I forgot I didn't own a TV and
that my fasting would break with me googling the time of <i>Maghrib</i> and
comparing and contrasting the different timings between the different
time-zones of the city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">It did not feel special at first. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I remember situating myself in front of my
laptop with some strawberries and water since I had no dates and yogurt, and
searching on youtube for the <i>Adhan</i> that most resembles home. The moment
I'd break my fast, I'd pray and then call my friends and socialise a little
with them before it was time to catch the last tube back to my apartment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">It was difficult the first couple of days,
until I decided that googling Ramadan in London, was probably not the best way
to spend the holy month in a city that was slowly becoming home. And so began
my journey in trying to ease the binaries that rested within me about the East
and the West, slowly by taking short walks around my neighborhood and trying to
spy with my little eye fellow muslims. As soon as I reached the bus stop in my
beautiful islington neighborhood, a woman too busy reading her novel and
twirling her hair smiled at me, and said <i>Ramadan Mubarak.</i> At that
moment, I couldn't tell if she fasted as well, or if she was indeed a 'fellow Muslim', in fact, I ridiculed my very
attempt of trying to 'type' her as any kind but a fellow human being. And there
it was, the bus journey that took me to the centre of what was then my universe
showed me a sense of collectivity in a society that is often dubbed as
individualistic. I found myself seeking that sense of closeness that I often
reject priding myself that I belong to the 'I' alone, and nothing else. I found
myself walking to Edgware road, the famous Arab street that always offers the
best and the worst of what it means to be an <i>Arab.</i> I actually found
myself looking for the commonalities rather than the differences I usually feed
on, That Ramadan, I became very
collective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">It was difficult at times to feel the
spirituality of fasting, when the coffee smell from the neighboring cafe is
almost blinding to all my senses, or when the parade of the teenage drunks
starts marching on my street on friday night, indeed it was very difficult to
the point that I wanted badly to go back to Dubai for just a while, just to
feel the presence of God again. But then I found my solace in the words written
by Him that tell us, and told me that day that <b>"<i>T</i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">o GOD belongs
the east and the west; wherever you go there will be the presence of GOD. GOD
is Omnipresent, Omniscient. (2:115)"<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Ramadan is beautiful in London this year
as well, and though I stopped looking for commonalities between me and this
city, I find solace in knowing that He is here, like He is there, without the
need to keep googling Him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />This post was written for Art Dubai's Blog, as part of their "Posting Ramadan" Series. Original Post can be found here: </i></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i><a href="http://www.artdubai.ae/blog/googling-ramadan-by-mariam-wissam-al-dabbagh/">http://www.artdubai.ae/blog/googling-ramadan-by-mariam-wissam-al-dabbagh/</a></i></span></span></div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-14306776363285478292012-08-01T16:48:00.001-07:002012-08-01T17:13:14.874-07:00Say Hello and Wave Goodbye<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">The death of the heart is the saddest thing that can happen to you. -Chinese Proverb</span></i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have a certain fascination with suspended spaces and time(s), such as airports, train stations and in some instances hotel rooms. There is a lure to the revisited places that often witness pleasures, pains and heightened potentials, well at least for me there is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have always been attracted to such spaces, every time I travel, and God knows I've had my share in the last two years ( I've traveled through airports more than 40 times), and yet every time I do, I make sure I go at least 4 hours before my flight departs so that I'd spend some time in a terminal filled with people either welcoming new stories, or ending long ones. I'd always sit on a chair either with a book that often masks my curious looks, or a notebook where I jolt down stories i'd imagine happening in the wandering minds of fellow travelers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, I often also spend some time imagining or at times pushing visual images away in hotel rooms the moment I start occupying them, trying to understand what stories the walls have to tell, and what shames or pleasures the white clean sheets had to witness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Train stations however remained foreign to me because of the nature of transportation in the city I lived in most of my life, that was until I moved to London, and they became central to my life. My last recollected memory of a train station was in <i>Baghdad</i>, I don't remember the name of the station, but I was probably 7 years old, excited about having our private cabin with bunk-beds to share with my siblings on our trip to <i>Kirkuk</i> where my Aunt ( may she rest in peace) once lived. Was there a big clock in the station? That's how I remember it, but also that's how they are portrayed in hollywood films, so perhaps my memory is tainted with western stereotypes, and romantic associations with the industrial revolution as it is portrayed in books and films I read and watched growing up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Until I started traveling outside what was once the locus of my universe, I began observing train stations and my fascination with them grew even more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've spent some ample time in stations during my time in London, sometimes in passing as means of commuting, and others saying my hello's and goodbyes. I always looked for the odd couple that fought before one of them boarded a train away, or the ones that did not cry but laughed trying to ease the separation. I was in love with my selections, and often imagined that I would also reclaim the space when the time came to say my goodbyes, and create a counter-argument to the usual tears shed while departing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that never happened, instead I saw myself narrating in my head instances when I had to say goodbye to loved ones while it was happening! It was too intense, I'd hear a voice-over in my head describing the teary eyes, the shaking hands, and the embrace that truly suspends time. My mind also directs the whole scene where people move in time-lapse, while I am standing still feeling with every passing second, a life-time slipping away. My narrative in fact, became the most dramatic of them all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A week ago, I revisited a station that I hate and love by chance, not intended, I found myself somehow forced to take it to reach a hotel-room I then called home. I walked in with so much caution, pretending I was a horse, that I only saw what was in front of me, and that my human eyes could not comprehend the sideways. I wanted to avoid that seat outside the station where I sat not so long ago crying because I had to live that un-coveted goodbye. I avoided the gateway which saw both the arrival of my solace, and the farewell to the arms. I tried to avoid looking at the station I was now walking through so much, that I actually missed both my gate and the train. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And then I looked behind, and saw that clock I have always imagined in the train station in <i>Baghdad,</i> and saw my little self crying because her daddy then could not travel with her to <i>Kirkuk. </i>I also saw that with every goodbye I said in the train stations of my life, I always shed rivers of tears because in their essence, farewells are hated by me. I stopped blaming myself for my overt sense of sensitivity, and accepted that my vulnerability to separation is rooted deep in losses I've lived through in my childhood and adult-life. I accepted then only that my sadness and fascination with train stations, airports and hotel rooms, comes from my continuous struggle with the temporality of it all: of life, moments, happiness and love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I waited for the next train on a bench close to the one that I avoided, and I saw me sitting there crying genuinely as I said goodbye there once, and It did not bother me, in fact, I smiled at me and prayed that I will never stop crying for those who matter, but then leave. I also closed my eyes a little and prayed that the next time I am here, I am saying hello not waving goodbye.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*<i>Title of this post is a the title of David Gray's Song found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bzdrabPpRE</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">* Photographs are part of my collection of captured memories. </span></span></div>
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</script></div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-79385636869122204482012-07-31T16:33:00.000-07:002012-08-01T06:51:08.289-07:00On Brothers, Cousins and Strangers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of Iraqi car plate, with Kuwait listed as a city in Iraq. Image circulating heavily on facebook. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Amidst the traffic of all the drama series competing for audience attention during Ramadan, couple of productions managed to catch, if not ignite the attention of Arabs and Muslims around the world. The famous <i>Omar</i> that narrates the historical significance of one of the most prominent figures in the Islamic history; Omar ibn AlKhattab, and another Kuwaiti series titled, ‘<i>Saher Al Leil’ </i>which takes place in Kuwait, during the Iraq-Kuwait war in 1990. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Much has been written about <i>Omar</i> that I feel the only thing I want to say about it is that I am indeed watching it. It is interesting how the debate itself on the series has rested within two fixed positions, or rather statements: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You can read statements as such on both twitter and facebook, with some offering explanations and others just sharing their decision; the main concern being the depiction of the companions of the Prophet (pbuh).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the specificity of Iraqi online groups on Facebook that I have been monitoring lately, the debate on <i>Omar </i>took a different shape given the nature of the sectarian sensitivities within the Iraqi community. Some of the members of the different Iraqi groups were posting images of the series, especially scenes in which the character of <i>Omar Ibn AlKhattab </i>and <i>Ali ibn Abe Taleb</i> are together, either to bring awareness to the desired unity between Sunni and Shia Muslim Iraqis, or sometimes even to poke fun at one sect. Some of the expressed views in the groups I monitored about <i>Omar</i> were in fact suggesting that watching the series is indeed a ‘strong’ political statement against the status quo in Iraq nowadays. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I apologise to the non-informed reader about the nature of the dispute between the different sects in Islam, and the symbolism of both <i>Omar Ibn AlKhattab </i>and <i>Ali ibn Abe Taleb </i>to the sectarian politics, I wish not to indulge in such details in this post. I just wanted to share some of my observations on the initial reactions in both the Arab public sphere ( I use the term loosely here) and the Iraqi one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Very interesting observations were made as well in regards to the Kuwaiti series <i>Saher Al Leil</i> which depicts life in Kuwait during the Invasion of Iraq in 1990. I have not watched the series, and so will not offer my opinion on what the show is about. However, what I believe is fascinating is the sense of unity this series has provided amongst Iraqis from different sects, ethnicities, and political backgrounds. I myself have received emails and facebook messages from different Iraqis I know, that hold very different political, religious and social views all critising the series, and bringing back a rhetoric that has not surfaced for almost 22 years now; images of Iraqi Car plates, with Kuwait listed as a city, and images mocking the borders between the two countries. In fact, the same groups that had very conflicting opinions on <i>Omar Ibn AlKhattab</i>’s role in Islam shared almost the same views against what they described as a false and unfair depiction of Iraq in the series. It actually reminded me of the famous Arab proverb <span class="s1"><b>أنا وأخي علي ابن عمي</b></span><span class="s2"><b> وأنا </b></span><span class="s1"><b>وأبن عمي</b></span><span class="s2"><b> علي الغريب</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">which roughly translates to: My brother and I against my cousin, and my cousin and I against the stranger. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I have included images I found on facebook, published here for illustration purposes only. </span></div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-38397090929464092592012-07-09T15:40:00.000-07:002012-07-09T15:40:00.267-07:00Accidental Seeds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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12 years ago, i said something: one sentence, a reactionary statement to a loved one that I probably did not even mean, or maybe I did. <span style="background-color: white;">That 5-word sentence shaped both of our lives drastically. Good and bad changes came along on the different paths we led, but the truth is, it was that sentence that shifted the realms; sliding doors you can call it.</span></div>
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I never forgot that day, although i forgot everything and everyone that led me to it. It was a seed that I planted unknowingly in a distant past that I reap the fruits of today, and tomorrow. I had a conversation with my friend recently about those seeds we 'accidentally' plant and live/witness their bearings later on. I did not speak of the intentional actions we take in our lives to foolishly attempt to design a planned future we have no control of, but seeds that we sporadically scatter around, not aware of what consequences they bear.</div>
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Well that 12-years old statement that I take full responsibility of, is what led me 11 years later to research and examine the meaning of diaspora, and take interest in the <i>dislocated</i>. A sentence that I did not understand back then, led me, Maryam, to continue my education examining the meaning of being <i>diasporic</i>, and continue my search for the meaning of home. </div>
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I wish not to indulge you in the private meandring of my mind, but I couldn't help but wonder today in the midst of all the unnecessary errands I was running, what seeds was I planting? What have I said and done that will ultimately decide how my tomorrow will look like? You see, I am a firm believer that we do not meet by accident, and that we each hold significant roles in each other's lives that will ultimately change our paths, or direct us to new ones that we are not aware of. This belief, agree or disagree with it, has led me to examine closely my relationships with people and events around me. I examine them with awe and wonder, mainly questioning the role(s) they played, or will eventually play in the shaping of my coming days. </div>
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I recently met that person, who was kind enough to remind me about what I said 12 years ago, but with a hint of sarcasm and humor. He assured me that it was indeed part of a forgotten past, and that it had no bearings on any of us. But I knew then like I know now that this polite reminder was nothing but an attempt to shed light on the power of our words and actions, and how one slip of a tongue can possibly alter destinies.</div>
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both scary and exciting to think of those accidental seeds. What might they be? Was it that book I just started reading, the email I decided to send today to an old friend, the smile I generously offered a stranger at the gas station this morning, or this very blog post I decided to write this late hour of the night?</div>
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Accidental seeds, indeed they are. </div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-61665818282173391402012-07-02T04:57:00.000-07:002012-07-03T08:35:26.972-07:00An Idle Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Death is a funny business, indeed it is. At some point it becomes less about the 'loss' of the deceased and more about how 'we' feel about the space he/she leaves behind. We keep thinking about how 'we' are going to survive the next minute, day or even year without him/her,how we will be able to champion our next smile, hold back the tears, and go on with our daily pursuits of happiness and eternal greatness.</div>
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Death indeed is a funny business. </div>
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Yesterday, I and I can only speak about myself with such certainty lost the possibility of walking into the office of a man I've always respected and loved. I lost the chance of engaging with him in a conversation about education in the Middle East and what I, the once scared, almost-crying student that walked into his office in 2001, think of the world post-graduation. </div>
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I, lost a potential of a good conversation and a warm smile that could have possibly renewed my faith in the education system. </div>
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Like the university's buildings, and strong concrete pillars, I've taken Dr. El Sadek's presence for granted, at the back of my head, there he was with my friends and loved one. Granted! That's what he was, yes I did plan to go see him again once I am done with my crazy schedule, perhaps this week, or the week after. Or maybe, I wanted to visit AUS again during the fall, when the weather was more tolerable. </div>
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Yes, I planned to visit Dr. El Sadek at some point in the near future, without even considering for a spilt of a second that this plan might not fall through. </div>
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Death is a funny business because it remains to be the one uncontested truth in our lives, everything else seems to be debatable, even GOD is debatable nowadays amongst the enlightened elites, but death is never argued, not for, and not against. </div>
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Death, the one constant in our lives, the truth that never changes, never evolves, is always denied and ignored. We have a beautiful and scary way of ignoring this truth, striving hard to achieve immortality, be it through our words, our photographs or our work, we all ignore death so well that when the news of one of us passing 'away' comes, it shakes us to the core. </div>
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I have been blessed and cursed with the daily reminder of this truth through personal losses of my own that have shaped my whole being. Every night I sleep scared that I would wake up to a quit(er) house, a phone number that is no longer in use, and a Facebook page that is no longer active. Every day I wake up naively rushing to the living room to make sure that both my parents are healthy and awake, and that my phone is buzzing with messages and missed calls from siblings and friends.</div>
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But in the midst of all this traffic of ideas and fears, I forget to worry about a person or two, and then comes an idle sunday when you wake up on the news of their passing. </div>
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No matter how good I think I am in preparing myself, Death comes and reminds me that we are indeed, never really prepared. </div>
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So here is to my naiveity, and to all the people I lost along the way. </div>
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And here is to Dr. El Sadek, may you rest in peace and forgive me for forgetting to worry about losing you as well. </div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-25133741612189809302012-06-29T15:41:00.001-07:002012-06-29T15:41:43.656-07:00on kitkats, Kirkuk and the meaning of Iraqiness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Speaking on my complicated relationship with kitkats, and Iraqiness. </div>
<iframe src="http://archive.org/embed/OnKitkatsAndKirkuk_428" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0"></iframe>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-51701483761754317012012-06-20T15:43:00.001-07:002012-06-20T15:46:39.418-07:00on sound bytes, baghdad and first times<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Below, is my first attempt at speaking my own words. I am quite new at this 'embedding' thing, but here goes everything.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" src="http://archive.org/embed/OnVoice1.1" width="640"></iframe></div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-8943924703820643922012-03-18T16:01:00.009-07:002012-08-17T16:31:53.157-07:00The Poet & The Scientist 1.1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">They left their foreign cities, and forged digital alliances to meet in the epicenter of their colonised past. She packed the innocence of her scarred life, the poetry of her ancestral belonging, and he traveled light, burdened with his manufactured convictions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">He came with numbers and diamonds, and she welcomed him with extremes of veiled chocolates, cigarettes, and her words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">In the express train, there it was: collisions of shock and anticipated pleasures as they waited to reach the centre of what they once both called home. The conversation was just about to start, but the debates were silenced, the binaries were resting, and the potentials heightened.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">The conversation continued, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPsSoTozzdU">foreign music</a> played in the background to remind them once again, that it was indeed all foreign, all but their coveted explosion.</span><br />
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Laughter, tears and music all seemed wordless at a moment when her words were silenced and his numbers were subtracted to zero. Musky scents of occupied pasts in a room that witnessed the death of poetry and the abortion of science.</div>
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He tasted pleasure, she suppressed pain and both surrendered to a moment they knew will last for as long as… a moment does. <br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">He watched her words fall asleep, and her defenses fall as his lips stretched with a small victory that he concurred her lands, and claimed them his. She slept to dream of her words again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Outside the small window was the remains of an empire that insisted on stealing their belonging. They denied it with the smell of coffee, fresh bread and cigarettes stealing with pleasure moments of their lives. Outside that window, was the empire, but inside the room was Baghdad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">Baghdad: loved, hated and coveted stood uncontested in her eyes, Tigris flowing signaling him to taste home, and begging her to quench her thirst.. They both swallowed home to the point of rejection.</span></div>
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In Baghdad, the explosions went silent too, and the unfamiliar sound of peace alarmed them that it was too, coming to an end. <br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">The music faded away, and the conversation rested to give space for a debate that mocked the rivers and the sweaty palms. His numbers increased, as her poetry resurrected: Words he tried to erase, and softness that suffocated his resistance. He screamed for proofs, as she scribbled words on sheets that witnessed her demise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">She wore her contradictions and he fixed his emptiness as they left for the train. Quite they were, but the silence has left them. He took a glance back at the building that welcomed their wreckage, while she held his hands preparing to let them go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">She was the poet, and he was the scientist.</span></div>
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Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-10985085679233776222011-11-14T10:16:00.000-08:002012-07-03T08:35:50.042-07:00Platform 12<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">She ran down the steps, whispering to herself “I am free”... She did not understand how she almost flew off the steps: Light, that’s how she felt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">“ I am free” she kept repeating it, trying hard to remember all the beautiful slogans she read about freedom, all the songs she chanted as a child, all the synonyms related to that glorified word, she remembered none. She instantly thought of Kundera’s story, and how finally she was beginning to understand what he meant when he called it “the unbearable lightness of being”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span"> “What if I miss the train? What if I reach the station to find it empty? Where will I go?” Home, she thought. A funny word, a phantasmagorical place rather. No, there is no home. She kept running, she could feel the slow loss of breath, but she did not slow down, she couldn’t now. Not anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">The distance between the bench and the station was not long, the station was not far. “Where will I go?” And then she smiled thinking to herself that this is everything she ever wanted; this is what she read in books and often imagined as her life. Running free in the cold streets of south London, homeless men begging for money and cigarettes, strange women and men drinking to forget, in the distance jazz music playing... This was it, this was her book, but she was no longer reading it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">The station is there, but her solace was behind. The station was too close now, it is time to look back, and maybe the bench can still be there. It wasn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">She reached platform 12, but it was the wrong platform, it did not take her home. She knew that, but she jumped on the first train 40 seconds before it departed. She knew the destination was unknown, but she took the train anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">On the seat, beside a man who looked happy with his poppy, and disgusted with the world in his paper, she began to breathe again. The music in her head began to fade away, her voice stopped narrating. It was all quite, it was light again. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span class="Apple-style-span">He looked at her with eyes of wonder, and asked: “you smell really good, that is you right? It’s like I am in a meadow?” She nodded “Yes, I am the meadow.” He smiled and continued reading his paper. She looked away, and her heart started beating again, she was going nowhere, where will she sleep tonight? </span></span></div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-40245560376213385302011-07-07T14:34:00.000-07:002012-07-03T08:36:07.530-07:00Talbot Square<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 100%;">In a little square by Sussex Gardens in London, two young girls played all day finding pleasure in the littlest things. Amazed by the great weather they were not accustomed to, Talbot Square in London became their haven: trees, grass and benches. It was situated right next to the motel, in which they stayed in with their parents and their baby sister who was too young then to play with them.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I heard this story several times from my Rasha and Tamara, who spoke about London with such love and warmth, and that square in particular. I knew that one day I will visit London just to see what Talbot was all about. Years passed, we grew older, and Rasha got married. She left the nest, and went back to the homeland with her husband.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br />Some more years passed, and on an idle Friday we received a phone-call from Iraq telling us of her death. I remember this day clearly like I remember what I had for breakfast today, the details of what my mother was wearing, and the smell of freshly cooked Iraqi lunch from the kitchen. I remember that my hair smelled like the new Johnson's baby Shampoo, a product I never used since then.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Fast-forward to year 2011, and 9 months into my life in London, I finally found the courage to visit that square in Paddington. I went there with so many high expectations, and excitement that I will be visiting this magical place my sisters believed was the best place to be in the city. To my pleasant shock, the square was less than ordinary, a very small green piece of land situated in the midst of motels and dark old ugly buildings. I looked around trying to find the ‘scary’ lion statue they often spoke of, and there it was a tiny statue of a gold and red colours right next to the square.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I sat on a bench, and took a deep breath. I was a bit disappointed to tell the truth, and a little bit angry as well. I couldn’t quite understand why the anger when I believed that I would be smiling like in the end of a movie when the heroin visits her sister’s playground and makes a little prayer for her. The feeling of serenity escaped me, and tears started suffocating my eyes trying against my own will to leave. It was when one managed to escape my control that I realised that all I wanted to do was to pick up the phone and scold her for such exaggerated description of the square. I realised how much I wanted to have her number saved in my mobile phone, you see she died well before technology took its toll on us. Oh wait, she did manage to see my father’s first mobile phone, you know the big black block back in the 1990’s. Oh yes, I remember she laughed calling us privileged elites, since she lived in war-torn Iraq now; food and security is what she worried about.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I found myself wondering if my sister would have had a blackberry, she had to. I would send her images of myself in every spot in this city, she would have loved southbank, and would probably reply with a crying face wishing she was there with me. She would also send me a message late at night to check if I was ok, you see she loved playing mother so much reminding me all the time that she changed my diapers. I would also send her an image of the so-called great square and laugh at her lack of imagination. I started thinking about her Avatar, she wasn’t the type that changes her picture every day, or maybe she was I don’t know, I will never know.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I will never know! There, right there I started to let go of my tears and surrendered to crying. I was laughing and crying at the same time thinking about the absurdity and beauty of the human mind: the mundane details that help us survive.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br />It has been a while since I’ve cried for you Rasha, not because I haven’t had the urge, but because like everybody else, I pretend that death becomes easier by time. You always used to annoy us with your constant ego-trips: “ How much do you miss me? How much do you love me? Am I your favourite sister/daughter?” we used to always nod and ignore you.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br />But here you go Rashawi, I am not ignoring you anymore. I love you more than you can ever imagine, your absence has made you my favourite sister, and mom’s one and only. I miss you so much and the thought of not messaging you in the middle of the night scares me still. Oh how I wish I can tell you about my life in London, and about my good grades. I wish you can tell me again how special you think I am, and how different you thought I was from everybody else. The day you died, you took something away from me that will never come back. This pain of losing you has raised the bar so high for other mediocre pains in my life; nothing can break me like your absence did. Even your death made it easier for us to endure other pains, you were right Rashawi, </span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;">mako mithlich*</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-size: 85%;">.</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I will visit Talbot again, look at my phone and think of you.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 78%;">*</span><span style="font-size: 78%; font-style: italic;">mako mithlich:</span><span style="font-size: 78%;"> Iraqi for ' there's no one like you'. </span><br /></span></div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-40016806577181570132011-04-05T12:03:00.000-07:002012-07-03T08:37:20.668-07:00Egyptian Revolution did NOT start in Silicon Valley, CA.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">On March 30<sup>th</sup>, the frontline club and in association with BBC Arabic hosted a special panel titled: Protest, Technology and the End of Fear. The event hosted Alaa Abdul Fattah, famous Egyptian blogger and political activist, Manal Hassan, activist and co-founder of the Egyptian GNU/Linux Users group, Sam Farah, Presenter of BBC Arabic <i>Nuqtat Hiwar </i>(Talking Point) and Louise Lewarne, who lives in Egypt and is the founder of occupiedcairo.org <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The second panel hosted Khalid Abdalla, Actor and political activist (you might know him from the <i>Kite Runner</i>), Dr. Omar Ashour, lecturer in ME Politics and the director of the MA in the Middle East Programme in the University of Exeter, Omar Robert Hamilton, British-Egyptian (hyphenated identity) film-maker and the founder of the Palestine Festival of Literature, and Salma Said, an Egyptian activist, and a member of the <i>Kifaya</i> political movement in Egypt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The event started with the first panel discussing the so-called role that technology played in what is now called the #25Jan revolution that led to the ousting of President Mubarak. The event was organised in a way that invited the audience to actively participate in the conversation, which was interesting and did add a certain edge to the dynamics of the panel discussion. The speakers were first asked to say several words about what they thought of, or would like to discuss, and the audience then led the steer of the conversation. The moderator I argue was very excited at the notion that facebook and twitter played a vital role in mobilising the masses in Tahrir square, and even directed a question at Manal about how she saw technology playing out in Tahrir. Manal disregarded the notion immediately and assured the moderator that technology had no presence in the spirits of the people standing and chanting in Tahrir square. She did not disregard the importance of sharing information about what was happening, but refused even the slightest hint that social media did play a vital role in the success of this revolution. Alaa agreed with her, and explained that Egyptians used their voices (and clubs and rocks whenever they needed to defend themselves against the aggression of the police) more than they used technology. Indeed, in the panel that was aimed at discussing technology and revolution the speakers did not want to discuss facebook and twitter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This was supported by a member of the audience, who shared my views when he stated that the western excitement about the technology being part of this revolution was indeed their way of wanting to be a part of a democratic uprising that needed no intervention. I shared his sentiment when I compared how the theorizing of social media and democracy nowadays mirrors the US excitement about the <i>Samizdats</i> being responsible for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of Communism. I mean who could forget Hilary Clinton’s infamous speech on the 21<sup>st</sup> January 2009 when she compared the internet to the <i>Samizdats</i> and declared it the tool for the oppressed against authoritarian regimes. Of course I must note that my comment/question about the political ramification of the fall of Baghdad during the American and British led war on Iraq in 2003 on the Egyptian revolution was met with enthusiasm from the panellists, and rolled-up eyes from the moderator. I guess the fact that the conversation with the audience did shift to the political impact of the revolution did interfere with the already set-agenda to link technology and the Egyptian revolution together. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Alaa actually made an interesting comment following my intervention, and discussed how the protests that went out on the streets of Cairo ( opposing the war on Iraq) in 2003, and were harshly oppressed and stopped by the police, led eventually to the formation of several dissident political parties. Alaa intelligently realised that the potential of the question was important, since Egypt’s democracy was established bottom-up, and not like Iraq, which saw its so-called democracy brought on American tanks, and British jet-fighters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">One of the most fascinating comments was made by Sam Farah, who took the liberty on behalf of the whole Arab population in the world to declare Arab nationalism dead. Alaa interrupted and asserted that during the whole time in Tahrir square, the chants were: Cairo first, then Jerusalem. As soon as the panel ended, Alaa tweeted:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;">T</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 115%;">he siege of Gaza will fall, gas will stop flowing, camp David will be renegotiated so Egyptian army can be deployed in Sinai, promise</span>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The second panel was more involved in discussing the future of Egypt and the political development post the revolution. All of the speakers shed the light on the possibilities of change and development in Egypt now. Omar Hamilton was very precise when he rightly assured that the democratic developments in Egypt must not be linked to neo-liberal economic policies, that link he considered to be ‘dangerous and wrong’. Khalid Abdalla stated that the best support Egyptians can give to other uprisings in the world is by succeeding in their efforts now, and that what is happening now will determine the real success of this revolution. The discussion of course led to the Muslim Brotherhood involvement in politics, which triggered a question from an audience member to Salma Said about the involvement of women in the revolution in Egypt. Of course, anyone who knows anything about the West’s fetishism about burdening the national discourse with feminist theory can predict the moderator’s then interrogation to Salma about who the women were that participated in the revolution, at some point he asked her: who are they? What are their names? Can you name them? Salma was obviously shocked and just simply answered, of course there were. And indeed, there were many, and the way that the moderator went about questioning Salma was heavily orientalist to say the least. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The event ended with a rather strong sentiment and question by an audience member that we later on find out that he is Khalid Abdalla’s father, who asserted the importance of having a leader to challenge the already existing powerful parties that are seeking to take power from the revolutionaries. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The event was successful in reframing the Egyptian revolution in terms of social mobilization and economic reform, and disregarding the utopian fantasy that silicon valley in California had anything to do with the millions that marched all over Egypt asking for change. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-13743104674906328012011-02-07T11:20:00.000-08:002012-07-03T13:52:08.912-07:00Notes on Egypt, Al Jazeera and the Digital Divide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The current situation in Egypt is indeed provoking many discussions about the role of media in the coverage, and some could argue the ignition of its events, which began on the 25 January 2011. The protests, which are held all around Egypt, but mainly focusing on <i>Tahrir </i>Square (translates to Liberation Square) are creating a new school of political and social contestation; what is being witnessed now is challenging the traditional uprising module, and is shifting the event from its national territory to a global scale.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The current events in Egypt are labeled differently depending on the language, and the geography. For example, here in London Western scholars are hesitant to call it a revolution as in yet. On the other hand, Al Jazeera Arabic channel uses the words <i>Thawra </i>&<i> Intifada </i>(revolution & uprising)<i> </i>generously when describing the scene in Cairo and other cities, which resonates well with Arab audiences who do not find the use of such labels problematic. Being an Arab myself, I find no problem using both words in the right contexts, with the simple logic that the situation in Egypt escalated when the young Egyptians revolted against the current regime and its president. I also don’t mind using the word uprising ( <i>Intifada)</i> although this word in particular is very nostalgic of the Palestinian one, and I sometimes find that using it plays a strong role in establishing anti-apartheid, anti-Zionism and anti-occupation sentiments with Arab viewers and readers of current news. For the sake of the argument however, I will continue to use the word ‘uprising’ in this post.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The reason that I argue that this Egyptian uprising is creating a new school, is because of the interesting intertwined role the media is playing in covering the events as they unfold. There is a circulating discourse that this revolution is a social-media revolution, and it is happening thanks to programmes like Twitter, and Facebook. From a critical point of view, this labelling could undermine the reality of the actual events that are happening for 14 days now on the grounds of the country, bringing together all Egyptians regardless of how connected they are. The reality of the digital divide in this day should not escape us when we attempt to acknowledge what is happening now in Egypt. There is no doubt that social media, and the World Wide Web have contributed and continue to heavily in the propagation and dissemination of information, and are also crucial in communicating with protesters on the ground. Many of the videos and information that we are receiving now are being circulated through social media, and are eventually being used as trusted source of information on mainstream media. However, not all of the 8 million protesters on the 28th of January were twitter and facebook users, those were people that had to protests for the same reasons the ‘connected’ protesters had when they went out on the streets. And when all connections were cut, and the internet was blocked in Egypt, the protests went on, that moment of disconnection did not affect its velocity, but rather affected how we received our information.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is important to question the role of media in this context, without undermining the role of new and small media in the recent events. This is not a Gladwellian article bashing new media’s role in the contemporary political map.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Another interesting angle to consider is the relationship between traditional and new media. This interesting shift back and forth between what Al Jazeera has to say, and what activists are tweeting and posting online, created unprecedented ways of witnessing. The distance and the physical disconnection are possibly not relevant, as many consider themselves participants by actively tweeting, re-tweeting and watching live-streaming from <i>Tahrir</i> square. Al Jazeera recognises this shift in coverage, and utilizes this by setting up a portal for all activists and protesters to post videos, images and news to be used later in the reports aired on the news channel. Also, considering the recent closure of Al Jazeera offices in Cairo, and the arrest of its journalists by the Egyptian governments, the channel is now relying on what the young protesters on twitter and facebook are saying, which in itself challenges traditional journalism. During the live coverage a couple of days ago, one of the news anchors on Al Jazeera undermined the efforts by the Egyptian government to shut down Al Jazeera offices in Cairo and interrupt its live coverage, because as she stated “every Egyptian is a journalist in the making” and this is a “new revolution that cannot be stopped.” These are strong statements from Al Jazeera, which is now gaining momentum for its extensive coverage of events unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt and is being considered one of the integral parts of the Egyptian uprising.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While most Western channels used <i>celebrity </i>journalists to cover the events, such as ABC’s Amanpour who was granted an exclusive interview with Mubarak, and CNN’s Cooper who is covering events live from <i>Tahrir</i> square, Al-Jazeera is still pacing ahead with the generous time slots offered to protesters, activists, Egyptian commentators and experts in Arab affairs. This reflects the strength of the coverage that needs no stars to validate it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: normal;">There is no doubt that as the events unfold in Egypt, Al Jazeera continues to challenge not only other news channels, but also new media with their coverage. It would be very interesting to see how these recent events could possibly change or alter the dynamics of journalism in Qatar itself, now that universities in Qatar’s Education city are calling for amendments in the press laws. It would only be fair, for the country that brought to us, what is arguably the most controversial of global news channels, to support press freedom in its own territory.</span><br />
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</div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-68209150171635488752011-01-30T14:33:00.000-08:002011-02-07T11:21:09.419-08:00Enough circulates..<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9nm2KkuZRExQeFC99EERzHSSNOhQb2-SlZpb-CvcNEjLqPA3RNj3johQV0IVX1Cb7AQI-_WGJ0oADb96yKV1BD4xUCiggvl-FCsu62_1OUwGPV9j9S7z-8c6eFcgfJAsWhJ42OKVq7w/s1600/IMG01814-20110129-1251.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9nm2KkuZRExQeFC99EERzHSSNOhQb2-SlZpb-CvcNEjLqPA3RNj3johQV0IVX1Cb7AQI-_WGJ0oADb96yKV1BD4xUCiggvl-FCsu62_1OUwGPV9j9S7z-8c6eFcgfJAsWhJ42OKVq7w/s320/IMG01814-20110129-1251.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568112915951264658" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">London Protests</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">29 Jan 2011</span><br /></div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">On the streets of Cairo, Egyptians are re-drawing the map of the Middle East, and arguably the world. In a couple of hours it would be almost a week since the protests against Mubarak's regime and government began in Egypt. It was surreal but somehow expected now that Arabs are already enjoying the support of the recent history of a nation's victory against an authoritarian regime in Tunisia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">To attempt to analyse what is happening now politically, socially or even from a media perspective is a bit complicated, as it is always dangerous to pose premature findings and analysis on what is happening while it is happening. Indeed, it is writing from the time of conflict that deems to be the hardest, whatever is said now could be proven wrong in the next minute.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">For Arabs everywhere, what is happening now is unprecedented in the contemporary history of the Arab world. Most Arabs revolutions happened before this generation was born, or when they were really young to comprehend the impact of the change. The myth of the '</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Al Sha'ab El Aaraby’</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, which translates to the Arab nation, was often contested and ridiculed; the masses are mobilised; they are aware, but too hungry and too poor to demand change.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Again, that judgment has now proved wrong amidst the epic uprising of the people in Egypt and Tunisia, and the collective solidarity and hope that is visible in all social media between Arabs living in the Middle East, or those forced out of their homelands in other countries. Social media programmes like twitter, facebook and other blog sites are overloaded with photographs, uploaded footage from </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">AlTahrir</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> Square in Cairo and articles that explain the political and social ramifications of the Egyptian uprising. Social media helped propagate the news and development on the streets of Tunisia and now Cairo to millions of people all around the world, and around the clock. This arguable shift from mainstream media to citizen journalism was challenged by the thorough coverage of the Tunisian and the Egyptian uprising by Al Jazeera channel, which is providing an extensive coverage of all major cities in Egypt and mapping as well the international reactions.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The one thing that is evident in the reactions of young Arabs in the Middle East and in Diaspora that this revolution is reflective of a generation that will not tolerate injustice anymore. A generation that is aware that change is not only possible, but also inevitable. The excitement builds up as several Arabs think of the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Domino Effect</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, and what other possibilities are in the very near future. This fear is also stretching to Arab governments that are this is the time of the people, not the ruling elites. Now Kings, Sheikhs, and Rulers must be aware as the word Enough is being repeatedly used in the Global Arab public sphere.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The creation of a global public sphere amongst Arabs virtually is not only successful in disseminating information and footage on what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, but also has reignited the collective nature of Arabs around the world. They now feel that they belong to something bigger than post-colonial segregated geographies, they now belong to the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Sidibouzeid </span><span style="font-family: arial;">and </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">AlTahrir</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> revolutions. It doesn't matter today if you are originally from Iraq, or Algeria, there is this collective identity that was Tunisian a week ago, and Egyptian today. And regardless of how people feel about this immediate shift in the national and local paradigms, the truth remains that what is being witnessed now is an unparalleled re-mapping of the modern world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In London, where I currently live, hundreds gathered in front of the Egyptian embassy yesterday to show solidarity with the protesters in Egypt. I was caught chanting Anti-Mubarak slogans fully aware that I meant every Mubarak in this world. Students from British universities joined to show solidarity and it soon became an international uprising against all injustice in the world. Mubarak, Obama and Cameron were suddenly all one.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">It is evident at times like these, how injustice can bring thousands of people together, irrespective of where they come from. There is a strong sense of relation, because unfortunately suffering has become an international language.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I found myself contemplating songs, slogans, prayers and thoughts as I tried to put logic to what is happening these days, and how all of a sudden the word government means nothing to me. I remembered all the creative contestation we exercised in the form of political jokes and proverbs, and smiled at the prospect of a new time, and a possibility of change.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I wanted to pray </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">Al Duhur</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, but thanks to my knowledge and understanding of how media works, I was worried that a sensational snapshot of myself praying on a Egyptian flag would be used to characterize this as anything but a revolution of all the people. A photograph of a veiled woman praying on an Egyptian flag would provoke an Islamist discourse and push forward all agendas trying to make this look like a political movement, rather than a popular one. This over-analysis is excused, for so many reasons.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">After some good five minutes of intense contemplation, I prayed on an Egyptian flag behind the protesters, and it felt right.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We all stood there for hours, some longer than the others. It was very cold, which I realised only 4 hours later when I rushed to the closest tube station just to warm myself almost crying from the pain. One can only try to imagine what the Egyptians are feeling now, as they camp on the streets of Cairo in the blistering cold, fighting not only for their right for freedom, but also for our hope for change.</span>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9152399857720631080.post-10315825627454362822010-11-11T08:09:00.000-08:002010-11-11T08:19:47.230-08:00Half the Story is Better than No Story<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheve7wom8j3mR9UtM_wnIyp7CHvruZe-98AxbZ0TivVDGo45MXSVB2wIM6kPhVogS2Kz1_Ni82jMT82aj4gQ1_wicZRNWG_sg6lNvYle2JjG9wfEivZLfKE7IxySrjrn6mDDohfftd4Sw/s1600/1101091012_400.jpg"><span style="color:#000000;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 302px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538325924466586690" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheve7wom8j3mR9UtM_wnIyp7CHvruZe-98AxbZ0TivVDGo45MXSVB2wIM6kPhVogS2Kz1_Ni82jMT82aj4gQ1_wicZRNWG_sg6lNvYle2JjG9wfEivZLfKE7IxySrjrn6mDDohfftd4Sw/s400/1101091012_400.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-size:78%;"></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#000000;"><em>Image courtesy of time.com</em></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><em>Cover Photo by: Adam Ferguson </em><br /></span></div></span><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em>The War on Afghanistan through the Eyes of Adam Ferguson<br /></em><br />The Front Line Club hosted a talk yesterday with Adam Ferguson; he is introduced as an up and coming star in the world of photojournalism and his work recently awarded. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Ferguson begins the talk with showing the audience some of his earlier work produced as a freelance photojournalist; he then plays a slide show with background music on his work as an “embedded” photographer for Times Magazine, with the American army in Afghanistan.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000000;"><br />One cannot help but notice the difference between the photos produced as a freelance photojournalist, and the works produced for Time Magazine. The first batch shows what he likes to refer to as the “quieter” moments in a war zone, with photos depicting day to day life in Afghanistan that are usually not covered in mainstream media. However, it is the contrast between the two sets of photographs that strikes the viewer and poses a question about the relativity between camera angles and the editorial policy of a publication. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">In his work produced for Time Magazine, Ferguson showed mainly photos of American soldiers in their quests on the foreign land that is Afghanistan. Soldiers are seen smoking, working on their Macbooks, standing proudly in front of carefully placed American flags, and going about their daily routines in what seemed to be a civilian-free photo shoot. The photographs quality is superb and almost artistic but the subject matters do indeed show how strongly “embedded” Ferguson was during his time in Afghanistan. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">When the time for the Q&A came, the presenter asked him about possible criticisms about his work as a photojournalist with the American army, and Ferguson simply answered that although he understand the problem and justifies the criticism he still believes that “half a story is better than no story at all.” </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I took the opportunity of the Q&A session to pose a critical comment: “It is when half the story becomes the whole story that is what is problematic.” Ferguson stuttered a bit, but then in a refreshing honesty answered that he agrees with me, and that a two-dimensional perspective on the war is indeed “wrong”, but he also justified it by saying that he is not “Islamic”, and if he was then he would have had more access to the other side of the story, the other half.<br />He also reassured the audience that the editorial policy of Time Magazine doesn’t affect his work, which I found to be a slightly misleading statement from his side since the difference in the subject matters of his work is striking and leaves no room for questioning.</span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000000;"><br />“I turned off my left-wing politics when I joined the American army in Afghanistan” Ferguson said when asked about his own personal opinion about what was happening, and how he conversed with soldiers on the ground. “I do feel like an occupier sometimes when I don’t show respect to the people and just go into a house with the soldiers while women are howling and men are being stripped of their right of privacy.” He added. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">A member of the audience asked him about his personal opinion about the war on Afghanistan, and whether it was a winning battle, and Ferguson answered that he doesn’t believe it is a winning situation, and that “democracy in a box isn’t working.” </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">He was then bombarded with questions about techniques and lighting and black and white photography, but what was evident the whole time was the fact that these images of war which can be at times very emotionally provoking are viewed as art. The fact that documentation of massacres and killings transforms into black and white blurry “artistic” photographs was controversial and is still stirring hot debates with media professionals on the issues of representation and coverage. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Ferguson did call himself an artist at some point, but the word that kept repeating itself in the course of discussion was “embedded” which was at least true to the nature of the photographic coverage. Ferguson also shed light on the agreement he had to sign with the American military agreeing to- and in his own words: </span><span style="color:#000000;">Not taking a photograph that he is not supposed to<em>.</em> </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">When asked if he was tempted to document a rather different reality from what the military wanted, he answered that he could have “broken the laws” on several occasions but he preferred not to “compromise” the rest of the trip and the potential film roll. </span></div><div align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The talk was interesting because it simply restated the worst assumptions one might have about photojournalism and the coverage of the “other”, however Ferguson’s photography is superb and his work as a freelance journalist holds the potential of photographs sans agenda.<br /></span></div>Maryam Wissamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16625901575056804170noreply@blogger.com2