Again i will use my strong ability of inventing verbs! this weekend we were syraning! means investigating Syria! on anyother occasion i wont use such terms but his was a tribute to my dear friend Dani. all the time we spent getting lost and getting on the nerves of the Syrians is remarkable and admirable. this is a country that knows how to live and how to celebrate its Christmas.
Egypt , a marvelous country full with contradiction. Foreigners won't understand all the overlapping scenarios but we Arab tourists can relate to. All the scenes we saw in real life we have already got accustomed to seeing them in the movies. One of the most adorable and bedazzling scenes that we saw in Egypt is this man who was sitting and looking at my huge camera that was staring at him in the eye. He sat there while I was secretly taking his picture. Emotionless and carless he stands for a big percentage of the Egyptian population. The crazy person who looks at you and asks you for a pictures and stands there proud of himself wearing his galabia ( the national dress ) and his American glasses. J What a country!
The portable digital camera is the best product man kind had ever invented. The tiny tool that is based on a simple physical law and requires only mirrors and lenses is an essential part of our lives in the 20th Centaury indeed is has created a boom in the art industry and shifted the initial essence of the act of painting. The tiny hand held device is the magical god that captures surrounding moments, touristic monuments, emotions, expressions and most of all people’s memory and fragments of their life. the obsessive addictive device managed to mentally capture its user and captivate him in the bordered world the camera is able to create. The interior pixels create various worlds and optimum reality. The objects that compose any image are independent of its own though each has a role but combined together they provide a magical dialogue with each other, but the most astonishing is that they take the life of their own and become immortal. The objects might change positions and arrangements thus changing their conceivable reality. For the photographer those photos would become his own belonging his is the god that created this world and little by little the lens becomes the eye that he hides behind to conceive the actual surrounding. He is rediscovering life on his own terms. At one point this self created god might die but his self created would forever live.
The series below are instant emotions and moments that are lost in the everyday life. the images were bewildering even for the actors appear in the photos. The captured emotions were a shock and astonishing.
World organizations argue that the age of slavery has ended after the world war and now our life is filled with the slogans of the civil rights foundations. Scholars started studying human rights in universities! As if human right is a subject to be studied and comprehended! As if the simple right to be respected and the right to be free and SIMPLY LIVE has to be scripted on paper and spoken in world wide conferences ! It has to be studied to find its way in this living world!
But again even with this media mess and the obligation to exist, we are still not free. Even in the middle of the 21st century we are still slaves for the head of the capital in other words the sheep owner! The owner that haven't read the human right declaration and haven't had any human right course or read any management book! Worst of all someone who knows nothing and understand nothing and thinks that the world revolves around his money! It is one thing to be slaves for the corporation and the institution , it is one thing that one doesn't own his own time for the sake for balanced life, it is one thing to be a slave for the capitalism, for advertising agencies, for the mass media, for the law, for religion, for mass destruction or for global economy but to be a slave for stupidity and mood swing to be slave for a sheep owner. this is the new slavery of the 21st century that not even Luther king has expected ! He had a dream! But he forgot to sleep in the first place!
Mother Motherland monumentIt just feels good to dig more in the Russian history and to find all the crazy things those Russians do and capable of doing. This memorial of huge sizes was built in the end of 50's to pay the tribute to the memory of those people who were killed on their duties during the WWII. The monument is in Guinness Book of World Records as the highest monument at that time. The woman symbolizes Russia and is two times higher than Statue of Liberty with 85 meters high (~280 feet.)
8th of November is now marking a new date that will be joined and linked to the events of the rebellion and vandalism in Ma'an and the renowned fights in the JU university over one Caucasian girl . Where on the opposite side big billboard advertisements stand in the face of the citizens promising with a more modern and a brighter future, the situation in Jabal Al joufe (eastern Amman) promises otherwise. The death of one young man who descends to one famous tribe leads to destroying public and private properties ; ironically including a public hospital that offers free of charge treatment.
One might relate those actions to the escalating economical situation of the country or the rage against the corrupt government but such action that came as consequence of the death of their son in the hospital after being admitted couple of weeks as result of a street fight. The tribe gave itself the right to form its own constitution and ask for the person responsible for his death of course asking for their revenge. Revenge in Jordan has always formed itself as a base in the tribal constitution. Usually the result of such action is either the death of the killer or a huge amount of money that would be agreed upon by the two parts of the family.
this year we are celebrating Amman's 100 birthday , we are making bigger cities and taller buildings, we are providing more services and we have better education and more jobs but on the other side we are turning into more savage people and our points are becoming narrower and narrower. we higher expensive people to plan streets and buildings that we destroy when we get mad about and seek revenge. We neglect the increase in the gas and food we neglect the increasing rate of unemployment but we never let go of revenge and hand the power to the authority! Maybe the city needs a new master plan for what is on the inhibitors head before planning what is under their feet.
A city I barely know, a city I barely lived in, though I claim it to be mine and claim to own its wind, snow, rivers and bridges. I claim to understand its people, its routine and its everyday life. Here I am walking like an alien in its streets, following the curves of the Neva River on my touristic map. I walk counting the tiles on the floors, the falling autumn leaves on the fresh green grass, the lighten windows on the classical facades.
I walk like an alien in the city that brought peace to my heart, in the city that it completely owned by me the same city that witnessed my birth. I left my soul there to be the impress of the palace and the owner of the houses, the blessed goddess that protects the rivers and the boats, the protector of the winter and the summer palace, the savior of the white legged trees of the continues forests. I mixed with the blood of Alexander and spilled on the Blood of the Savior Cathedral and mingled it with the water of the river and the rain. I am the power that opens the bridges at night to draw beautiful drawings against the black sky.
Franz Kafka
Gregor who suddenly over night turns into an insect over night is locked tragically in his new body. The story beautifully reveals his emotional struggle between his new identity as an insect and his old self as a working human being. He desperately refuses his new self and afraid of what he might become. He clings to his human self by clinging to his emotional feelings towards his family. He knew that insects don’t love or hate and they certainly don’t have emotions, for him as long as he gets hold of those these emotions then his transformation is not complete. Throughout the progress of the story lot his behaviors change and so is his family’s reaction to him. They stopped considering him as a brother or a son rather gradually they looked at him in sympathy and disgust until the end of the story when they his being is contradicting with their being.
What legitimizes a human being, is it the memory that he prints in people’s mind, is it the amount of money that they posses and willing to give. their attachment to one another is governed by a thin line that can be cut by time . everyone is replaceable and surely everyone is disposable even if the emotions in hand are pure family emotions. In gregor’s case, he was the money provider for the family and they depended on him hence he was respected. When he lost his ability to be involved in the working field they had to abandon him and look for other sources.
The story magically reveals the feeling of an insect, the way it moves or crawls on the walls, the way it eats or aches, the way it thinks and corresponds to external effects, we see this thorough his feeling of despair and shame of not being able to help his family, his feelings of hurt and deep sorrow and sadness. It should not be read in a biased manner towards him or his family , it is a story of every day happening and everyday life. the disgusting feelings of an insect that might push the reader to vomit while the feelings o f the family and their disgusting means of survivor after the his death is two sides of one coin.
The book opens up with the internal conflict of the powerful doctor that feels challenged by this prisoner named ferduis that refuse to meet her . her silence left the doctor hopeless and powerless, feeling that she has beaten by a killer who would be dead in few days. The psychological defeat of one man is only attained by silence. But at the end of the book the author/doctor admits that a killer who is true and honest is more powerful and honest than her. a killer who seeks her oneness is more powerful that a neurologist. Sitting on the ground feeling intermediated by the power around ferduis and her existence the doctor she doesn’t feel the coldness of the bare rough concrete. Ferduis slowly unravels graphically her story her emotions and her way of looking at people’s eyes in attempt t o understand them. He life is tragic filled with oppression and rejection by everyone she meets, abused in her childhood and adulthood, practically the story of 50% of women in the middle east.
The story jumps between the temples of fear and hate at one point and hate and anger at another, between black small eyes and the light they reflect as the ferduis address. This is not a story of prostitute thriving for compassion this is a story of a strong powerful woman who seek the freedom of her soul in a society controlled by sexual creatures called men.
At one point in her life she understands the contradicting parts of a relationship and gains control by choosing to be a prostitute. At some parts of the book she tries to blend in the society holding her “respect” with her high school diploma but she fails. When she decides to regain her freedom of choice she gains respect, when she decides to tell the truth in a world full of men’s lies she gets prosecuted and considered as a dangerous woman.
The content is powerful and tackles aspects of social, economical and religious society . taking the reader through a turbulent life with child abuse, child molestation, circumcision, rape, betrayal by people that led to her explosion in a life she struggled to adapt to but she couldn’t.
بيننا و بين السماء 2 كم لكن ليس كلنا يريد ان يمشي او حتى ان يفتح عينيه!
