Muslim Women Contest

Impulsively entered this deviantart contest with a couple of days to spare, and in the middle of last-minute exam revision for the SAS B national exam. Basically I took a break from copying out extensive notes to use in the five-hour exam from hell, and used up two hours I could have been out breathing fresh air squinting at the laptop. And ended up with the grainy picture below. Then I thought this could actually be allright if it was fixed a little more. Then I thought: five-hour exam from hell! and went back to extensive note-making.

Sometimes its not difficult to face up to and acknowledge my insanity.

Harembyxor

I thought the harem pants trend was very over, but I'm still seeing ads with women in billowy trousers everywhere. My friend calls them the fugly diaper trousers, and is frighteningly vitrolic in her hatred of the look. Yesterday she asked me if I didn't think it was odd that the harem pant wearing models are all white, blonde and blue-eyed. Or as she put it, supremely Scandinavian, in addition to being skeletal.

Its not quite true. The picture below proves it. But it also, strangely, seems to be an exception to the new harem pants paradoxical general rule: streamlined/billowy. There's chunky gold jewellery in evidence. And rich maroon replaces the black, white and pastels of the modern harem pants-wearing woman.

Its not about ethnicity. Or rather, not just about ethnicity. But all things are connected. When its about being streamlined and simple, I guess Scandinavian skeletalism works as well as Asian minimalism. Darker skin tones aren't incompatabile with elegance, but seem to be inadvisable in harem pants ads, unless accompanied by the appropriate props. Perhaps its because it may all be too much of a cliche. And that is precisely the point.

Copenhagen is Flat

Copenhagen is a flat city. There's just no other way to describe it. Its flat. With symmetrical flat buildings on either side of a symmetrical flat street. The buildings are dreary brick, the street is crowded with apple-cheeked cyclists, and the walls are occasionally brightened by exuberant street art.

On DFDS - Harwich-Esbjerg

London University External Program, Barbican Centre, 19 March

Coming Home

You are coming home at night:
you pass from light to light,
walking around the block,
and your shadow swings to the right
the way a second hand
goes round a modern clock,
and other shadows, bound
to your footsteps, climb the walls,
or jerk along the pavement,
and some contrast and darken,
others lengthen and fade.

The lights are various loves
by whom you find your way,
by whom you see and move:
they lend you guidance, they
enable you to find
not only house and door,
and wall and window-blind,
but something less and more,
your image, multiplied,
cast for your gaze, and thrown
distorted, but your own.

And what you need the most,
O walker in the night,
is to continue, sure
the self is always right,
and neither caricature,
nor unavailing ghost.

And if a light is broken,
if one of them goes out,
as well they may, of course,
and substance takes from shadow
its absolute divorce,
be reassured, in darkness,
the self is never lost.



- Rolfe Humphries

Going To London

Going to London for a few days, and then travelling back by car through Denmark. Last time I was in Denmark I was too young to remember much, this time round I hope I'll have more of a chance to see what its like.

I'm not going to be able to see much though, since there will be no actual sightseeing involved at all at any stage of the journey, and I'll be back by Sunday. So, a grand total of - five days.

But, all I'm thinking now is I'm leaving in a few hours...

Christians Disguised as Arabs!

About five months ago, I met two Egyptian women at a Swedish language course. I don't want to be stereotypical, but - like almost every Egyptian I know, they were hilarious. Effortless dry wit that I can only envy. Also like every Egyptian I know, they found the Libyan dialect amusing.

I've always admired the fact that Egyptians, for the most part, don't modulate their dialect according to who they speak to. I don't either. Mostly because I can't do accents to save my life. But the important thing is, we understand each other. And since, they conceded that the Libyan dialect is easier to understand than most North African dialects, I would consider us very good friends.

Religion just was not an issue. With the exception of the time a Polish woman looked extremely confused and asked me how it was possible for us to communicate. I pondered the question and found myself wanting to answer: She speaks Muslimese.

It probably didn't help that, had we been in a French school, both my friend and I would have been met with indignant repulsion and immediately thrown out for inappropriately manifesting ostensible religious allegiance - she wears a big cross round her neck, I wrap a big cloth round my head.

Last week, one of these two women talked about Christianity and intolerance in the Middle East. It was an unprepared speech, and, to quote the examiner, very heart-felt. Later, she told me about a book, and I told her about a documentary.

The debate is so easily exhausted. On the alarmist tangent, anything you read will be either: Christians forcefully convert good little Muslims OR Muslims brainwash good little Christians. On either point of the tolerance tangent, anything you read will stem from: Arab Christians are imprisoned and oppressed on a daily basis, OR Arab Christians are, like, totally free to practice their religion.

The truth, assuming you believe there is such a thing as truth, is that it often depends on where you are, and who you are. There's Lebanon and there's Egypt, Arab Christian rubbish recyclers and Arab Christian world leaders. Please pinpoint the oppression according to location, time, social environment. And before you do that, define the word, because it can be as tricky as "terrorist".

I have noticed that there seems to be a higher level of animosity in Egypt towards Christians than any other Arab country I know. I once saw a Christian family eating in a cafe in Ramadan during daylight hours. The looks they got were not pretty. Actually quite similar to the incredulously sneering look a woman once gave me when she found out I actually wear the headscarf, rather than occasionally covering my hair out of a chameleon-like compulsion to fit in.

Humans love letting other humans know they've got the world all wrong, as unsubtly as possible.
What most sickens me however, is when people use God's words as ammo. Trampling over what somebody else believes to get them to stop believing what they believe and start believing what you believe is just bizarrely illogical. The book my friend told me about does a bit of that - the equivalent of trashing somebody's room to prove to them that feng shui is stupid.

I'd say its offensive, but offensive is an over-rated word. Recounting experiences of strict parents and horrible childhoods as an explanation for conversion just makes me think: this should in the Parents Behaving Badly section of a Supernanny book.

The fact is, I think most of us can live very easily with "to you your religion and to me mine." (109:6) I'll have to ask my friend what she thinks of that and attempt to use it to brainwash her. Maybe I will sprout Pickthall, with Martin Luther King intonation (“The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers ”) There. Tolerance in Islam 101. We are colour-blind and have no walls.

Well, no. Muslims can be horrible bigots. And tolerance is an awful word anyway. It's like: I'm tolerating you right now but I would dearly like to find a way to escape your presence.

Two things were missing in the discussion between my friend and I. Shouting and gesticulating. But what's the link between spittle-spraying and conviction anyway? I contest the soundness of that theory. We also didn't argue over terminology, which is a first for me.

But I have done the oversensitive semantic-obsessed psychoanalytical spiel before. What exactly is "Arab Christian"? Would you introduce yourself as "Arab Muslim"? How and why for?
Once, pondering the levels of my own intolerance, I considered asking everyone I meet what they would call themselves to avoid accusation of bigotry.

It's odd. Arab/Muslim is so familiar the / just disappears sometimes, and the two words seem to blend into one homogeneous mooslim raghead world with many minarets and bloody suns setting to the wailing of the adhan.

But I suppose its just how it is. There are more Muslims than Christians in the Arab world. Like "the West", and "international community" Arab/Muslim appears to be too useful a misleading shortcut to cast out.

It also means that occasionally, someone might inform a five-year old boy with curly-hair and brown skin that he "looks Muslim." Mother of said boy exasperatedly asked me how its possible to look a religion. I said: manifesting ostensible symbols of religious allegiance help.

Sketch: Climbing the Wall

Gaza 90-Second Animation: Closed Zone

Yoni Goodman, who was director of animation for the Golden Globe-winning Waltz with Bashir, has produced a 90-second animation to highlight the continued blockade of Gaza and its 1.5 million Palestinian residents. The animation, Closed Zone, follows a boy chasing a bird who finds his way out blocked at every turn.

"The war made this project a mission for me. This character is this kid, he is kind of a kid and kind of an adult, a bit Arab and a bit Jewish, something that everyone can connect to, and it was very important not to turn this into a stereotypical film...I hope that when people watch the short they will be able to detach themselves from their automatic associations of good and evil."

Jerusalem: Demolitions and Construction Vehicles

Around 1,000 Palestinians living in the Bustan area have been told that their homes could be demolished, to make way for an archaeological park. Israel says the homes were built without building permits, Palestinians argue that Israel refuses to grant them permits while allowing Jewish settlers to build entire towns in the occupied West Bank.

I suppose the severe difficulty Palestinians face getting building permits in East Jerusalem, combined with the wave of demolitions of Palestinian homes, is a constructive way for Israel to effectively "manage" the city's Arab population. Unsuprisingly, there's been barely any coverage of this story, beyond Jevara al-Boudiri's reports on Al Jazeera.

Today, however, there was another story from Jerusalem, which did make it to the headlines, described as the "third terrorist attack of it's kind", as the driver of a construction vehicle was shot dead by police after ramming the vehicle into a police car. Jerusalem’s deputy police commander, Niso Shahar, told reporters: “We have no doubt that it is a terror attack.” No group has claimed responsibility yet, though Hamas has apparently described what happened as a "natural response" to the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and to the war on Gaza.

To bring everything full circle, Nir Barkat, Jerusalem's mayor, supports the demolition of attackers’ family homes and at the attack site said that he would recommend the authorities take "the harshest measures we can take by law" against those involved.