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July 26, 01:32 AM, Washington, DC
I just saw the Siege on TV, the movie with Denzel Washington. Things may not have happened exactly as indirectly predicted by the movie: a major terrorist attack in New York did not exactly lead to the declaration of martial law, but it did lead to Patriot Act, Preemptive War, Guantanamo Bay, an invasion of a country on the basis of false pretexts, and consequently to Abu Ghraib and other human rights abuses. The movie was based on common sense deductions. It is amazing what little common sense can do, and equally amazing how very few people are willing to listen to it.

July 20, 10:14 AM, Washington, DC
One's relationship with the Unknown should always be dialectic in nature. For once it is formalized or ritualized in any way, it instantly becomes "idolatry." The problem with idolatry is that it sets arbitrary "metaphysical " limits on the definition of right and wrong, not only in the theological sphere, but in the political, social and even economic ones as well. Indeed, it sets limits on free thought and free speech on both the individual and communal levels. So, while individuals are free to be idolaters, their existence, their idolatry, is bound to "taint" us all. But since, they, perhaps unfortunately, tend to represent the preponderant majority of humankind, "our" relationship with "them" has to be dialectical as well. Of course, at point or another in "our" lives, we might have easily been "them."

In life, everything is dialectical.

July 19, 1:05 AM, Washington, DC
If life were perfect, I'd be dead by now. For in a perfect life, there would be no room for an idol-smasher like me. In a perfect life, illusions rule supreme. Oh, thank heavens we live in an imperfect world.

If these sentiments should sound strange at first, coming from someone like me, one should bear in mind that my ir-religiosity, my atheism, has always been more anti-idol than anti-God. For I can only reject the evil I see, I cannot reject the unknown.

July 16, 12:46 AM, Washington, DC
Only Time will tell what remembrances really mean - whether they are simply nostalgic fragments of the self crying for fusion, or shattered moments of an all too fragile time seeking to be whole again. Or could it possibly be that I am Time and Time is me? That our co-terminality is the source of all confusion, because it needs to be continuously discovered?

July 14, 2:30 AM, Washington, DC
Life seems increasingly unfathomable to me of late, increasingly tumultuous. You cannot make sense of anything in the absence of silence. Yet, silence seems more and more like the luxury I can never afford again. My grip on reality is bound to become increasingly uncertain, I know. But then, has it ever been anything but uncertain? Through silence and tumult, it seems, in time, life is simply bound to lose all meaning, all significance. That is why I will be able to let go of it, one day. Will it be near?

July 13, 3:35 PM, Washington, DC
In the back of my mind (or is it my consciousness?), there lingers a burning certainty instructing me that everything I am doing today, that everything I have ever done all through my life, is nothing more than a continuing loss of myself to the world. The world is a cannibal and I its willing prey. How can I fight against something that comes from within and without and from yesterday and the morrow, and is present in every tremor and every minute of my night and day?

July 12, 2004 - 10:27 PM, Washington, DC
What is it that could make people mad enough to act? What is it that could motivate them into action? I mean, there are regimes out there that have persecuted, starved, and humiliated their peoples using all hideous tactics conceivable to the human mind, and yet, their victims remained inactive, inactive on account of their fear, of their sense of and desire for self-preservation. What does that mean? Is the threat of genocide the only way to get people to break through the barrier of fear?

June 17, 2004 - 04:31 PM, Damascus
In an ideological state, the ruling ideology is not important in itself but only inasmuch as it can serve as a mantra whose repetition is necessary to justify the continuing control of the corrupt ruling elite. For this reason, ideological states are almost always incapable of reinventing themselves. The best that can be achieved in them is implosion and disintegration.

The survival of a certain administrative core, in some cases, and the fight to maintain that survival, are not necessarily signs of (cultural and civilizational) vitality inasmuch as they are indications of the desperate activities of certain interest groups working hard to cut down their losses, on the one hand, and maximize their potential benefits from the breakdown, on the other.

This state of affairs could last for decades, and could only be challenged internally, when one of the groups involved manages, through whatever Machiavellian tactics, to impose its will and vision upon the rest. The final outcome of all this is not necessarily a liberal state, but one that is less ideological and more capable of accommodating global realities.

If no core should survive, the result would be a failed state. Failed states are more likely to get dissected and absorbed into neighboring states at great costs to all involved, than they are to be mended.

June 16, 2004 - 12:48 AM, Damascus
Of all the barriers that separate people in the world, racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, sectarian, etc., the barrier represented by one's social class, however defined, seems to be, historically, one of the hardest to break through. In fact, the thing that often makes the other barriers so difficult to break through or maneuver around seems related in no small measure to the fact that, in time, they tend to acquire a social dimension as well, that is, they end up delineating social classes as well. Or should we say sociomoral classes, since each class tend to develop its own particular conception of morality?

These are age-old observations, of course, but ones that need to be reconsidered today, as they are increasingly bound to influence, if not downright dictate, much of the geopolitical and economic developments in our contemporary world. Yes our world in rapidly becoming a place where the major difference between the Americans and French, on the one hand, and the Syrians and Peruvians, on the other, is mainly one of class, not culture. As such, some Syrians and Peruvians, namely: the ruling classes, will end up having much more in common with their counterparts in France and the US than with their own countrymen. The plot thickens!

May 22, 2004 - 10:44 PM, Damascus
No matter how powerful the impulse to resist putting it in words is, no matter how vain the claim I am about to make might sound, there is something out there, I just have to say it, that, for whatever reason in the world, seems to be genuinely watching over me. How else can I understand my continuing ability to do what others deem impossible without the slightest harassment from our security apparatus? Or is it simply a matter of time, and I am simply deluding myself in the usual conceit of one who has always been lucky and has always managed to land on his feet in the face of his own folly and, perhaps even, unworthiness?

For all the sake of the people who care for me, not to mention my own sake, let me indulge myself in this moment of superstition (not at all a rare occurrence in my life, no matter what I have to say, or how things might seem), and pray, pray, that my destiny will continue to be that of a perennial fool, albeit a sincere one, that, for whatever reason in the world, will forever go wandering through life always safe, somehow, from the repercussions of his own precious folly. And may this folly of his never hurt anyone.

May 7, 2004 - 3:28 PM, Damascus
Words are never accurate enough or sufficient to convey anything of what they are meant to convey. In this they are indeed like chopped-up memories and remembrances - always divorced from their original context, always victims to the inadequacies and particularities of the one in which they are vouchsafed unto the world. Yet, words are all I have to tell you who I am. How can you ever really know me then?

May 5, 2004 - 12:05 AM, Damascus
Happiness and fulfillment are not things you work for, but things you stumble upon in your aimless wanderings through life. Even the illusion of having a purpose is not a guarantor of happiness. Our souls, it seems, are forever destined to be restless and will only find fulfillment in death. Will happiness be waiting for us there? Can anyone really tell?

May 2, 2004 - 4:42 PM, Damascus
What's one to do with the dead weight of history and demographics? No, I am not about to embark here on some elitist complaint against the "ignorant masses," or the "mob," I am merely referring to the all-too real problem related, in part, to the confusion surrounding issues of identity and belonging, and, in other part, to the sheer pressure that population explosion exerts on the basic social services that a state should provide in order to survive in this world (its survival being of major importance to the wellbeing of, at least, the majority of its inhabitants, if not all).

Yes, there is such a thing as "too much history," too much history for us to sift through and sort out in our collective subconscious and/or our individual intellectual endeavors. But sifting and sorting (with all the relevant trimmings, that is, undertaking analyses, comparisons, contrasts and juxtapositions), are exactly the things we need to do if we are to figure out who we are again in this world, where we are, and where to go from here.

On the other hand, there is simply too many of us to deal with all these issues and reach suitable workable theoretical agreements and practical arrangements. And time is not a luxury that we seem to have, or, to be more exact, that we seem willing to allow ourselves, and each other, to have. What are we to do then? There are virtually hundreds of millions of people all over the world that constitute nothing more than dead weight in each of their societies and states because they lack the proper education and opportunities to cope or catch up with the rest.

Knowing that the reasons behind the lack of "proper education and opportunities" cannot be solely blamed on the people involved, and there are more complex reasons for that - reasons that, when taken under consideration, make us all into culprits so that no pleas of innocence can be easily entered or accepted, we simply cannot dismiss these people as Ayn Rand did in "Atlas Shrugged." Moreover, we should always bear in mind that a world can implode due to the increasing volume of the dead weight within it as well, and not only some imagined strike of its creative individualist forces. Indeed, the former scenario is much more likely and was indeed enacted numerous times throughout history. As such, there is really nothing necessary selfless in the assertion "we are all in it together," because we are.

Now, that still does not answer the question of what to do with the dead weight of history and demographics. Or, to put more clearly now: how to provide suitable education and create the necessary opportunities for living and advancement for the hundreds of millions of people in need throughout the world? Now that's a million dollar question or is it few billions now?).

I don't really have an answer, of course, because whatever answer I (or anyone else) can provide will be deemed too idealistic and impractical, and will work against the entrenched interests of too many "groups" and "social strata" to be widely adopted, and hence prove effective. But what I do know is this: this world is going nowhere without its "brutes" (or even Taliban. But, then, rejectionists and their role our contemporary society call for a separate analysis), nor can we exterminate them (to paraphrase Conrad in "The Heart of Darkness"). We have to find ways somehow to accommodate all into the fabric of modern "civilization," even when their values are radically different from modern ones. The benefits of modernity need to be extended to all and sundry.

But, in this analysis we are referring to those who didn't even have the chance to experience any of modernity's benefits. This is the main reason behind the Darfur rebellion, for instance. The marginalization of the Fur tribes and region (caused here in part by the racial prejudices of the central authorities in the Sudan, mostly Arab), meant that certain very basic services (such as electricity or clean water supplies) were not offered, and the infrastructure (including schools, roads, hospitals etc.) was either underdeveloped or nonexistent. As such, the causes of the rebellion were not related to a rejection of modernity and its benefits. On the contrary, the desire to partake of some of these benefits seems to lie at the very core of the rebellion. This does not mean that the Fur tribes do not possess certain pre-modern or even anti-modern values, and that, giving the chance, they will not develop certain rejectionist tendencies themselves, but the fact is, you need to experience modernity before you can accept or reject it, as a whole or in part.

But then, how about the rejectionists? How about the Taliban of the world? Or, to be more dramatic, how about the Taliban within how about our own atavistic predilections, lying under that elaborate veneer of modernity we tend to wear?

May 1, 2004 - 12:00 AM, Damascus
Are we all racists now? Or, to be more precise, have we always been so blatantly racist? If the events in Qamishly and Darfur prove anything about the Arab peoples, regimes and intellectuals included, is that they are far from being immune to racist stands. More so, we seem to be mired in them, immersed to the neck, in fact, but we are too numb, too absorbed with our feeling of victimhood, to pay attention, to notice. Apartheid, genocide, and slavery, especially slavery (how could we so conveniently forget about our history with slavery?) are not foreign crimes, as we have always contended. We are as equally guilty in this regard as everyone else.

Although, this is not necessarily a new realization on my part, but having to face it at this stage, against the backdrop of the massacres taking place in Darfur, not to mention the duplicity of Arab regimes and intellectuals in covering it up, and, at occasions, in rationalizing it, is simply too sickening for me to be able to hide my disgust. But then, why should I hide it? Showing and sharing it is the least I could do at this stage, though "doing my least" is not exactly very comforting...

lust

for

salvation,

Brother,

though

were

woman,

and

man.

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