Posts
since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
Mazin Qumsiyeh and Philip Weiss memorialized Riad Hamad and Hilda Silverman in:
- Death of Riad Hammad and support for Peace Action and
- Hilda Silverman, Human Rights Leader, Passes On.
Below are my wife's reflections on Riad's death.
They are a little more personal than most of the material I post on this blog, but Karin describes the sort of inappropriate ad hominem attacks Zionists use to silence and wear down critics.
After all what is an insult, an innuendo or a slur to someone that supports the rape and murder of a whole nation?
Both Riad and Hilda felt the offense that Zionism represents to God and man and had to act.
Salute them!
May 6, 2008
78 drops of olive oil
by Karin Friedemann
I finally took the Palestinian embroidered tablecloth to the dry cleaners today. I was going to give it to my mother-in-law for Christmas. Every year I grudgingly drop a couple hundred dollars to buy presents for a holiday I don't even celebrate. Last year I decided to order my gifts from the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund instead of squandering my money at Pottery Barn. I got a great shawl for my sister-in-law and a beautiful mother-of-pearl Bethlehem souvenir jewelry box featuring the Nativity Scene. I also got a pile of stuff I never even ordered, like a bottle of organic Palestinian olive oil, a handful of little wooden peace-dove pins, and a key chain reading "Bethlehem 2000," which I recall they were hoping would be a big tourist event but the Israeli troops canceled Christmas that year. Hence, the leftover key chains, I suppose. There was also a stack of about 30 flyers about the Wall.
I was rather astonished when I received the package because the stamps were stuck all over the box in such a disorganized fashion that the post office was not able to stamp them. Later, I soaked the cardboard in water to get the stamps off so I could reuse them. They were the pretty blue and gold Eid Mubarak 41 cent stamps.
Furthermore, there was a strangely long handwritten message written on the packing slip signed "Riad Hamad." I looked for it after I learned of his untimely demise but unfortunately I could not find it and I have no clear memory of what it said. I remember feeling strangely disturbed because of the tone of urgency with which the note asked me to let the world know what was happening to Bethlehem. A certain part of my brain asked, "What is wrong with him?" because most Islamic or Arabic relief agencies stick to glossy professional mailings free of personality. This charity worker seemed to really want me to know that it was Riad Hamad sending me these gifts from Palestine. I appreciated the gift items but was not sure why he seemed so urgently to feel that I should know his name.
I was even more astonished when I looked at the embroidered table cloth and saw that it had a faint round stain on it, as from a mug of tea.
The JCRC of Boston has hosted a website for years, entitled "MARRIAGE," which ponders the question of what my husband and I discuss over dinner. So for all you silly Zionists out there here is your answer! I asked my husband if he knew Riad Hamad and he told me, "Sure, you met him too, at the Al-Awda conference." It was one of our first dates when we were newly married. It was the day that Shaykh Yassin, Mufti of Jerusalem was murdered in his wheelchair by Israeli assassins in a helicopter. I heard him speak once, outdoors in downtown Cleveland during a rally for the release of our beloved brother Imam Jamil Al-Amin. I couldn't understand anything he was saying since it was in Arabic but his voice kept cracking. He reminded me of an old Native American Indian chief begging us to save his people, who were being massacred.
I told Joachim, my husband, "Your friend at PCWF sent us a stained tablecloth. I paid $100 for that tablecloth." He started laughing. "He sent you a used tablecloth?" We both cracked up. We decided not to ask for a refund since it was for charity but Joachim told me he'd email Riad to tease him about it. He never got around to emailing him though. (Men!)
Strangely, I was in such a rush to pack the family into the car to go to New Jersey for Christmas, that I actually forgot all the Christmas presents. It was totally embarrassing. But I remember thinking, there must be some reason that God didn't want me to let go of those things, although I did send my sister-in-law the gorgeous black shawl with red embroidery.
When I saw the news report that Riad Hamad was brutally murdered, I immediately remembered his name.
He was the weird guy who sent me the box of Christmas presents from Palestine. I saw his photo on the obituary and he did look familiar. He was someone with a strong and uninhibited personality. No wonder you could feel it just from the paper that he had touched. He was one of the few Muslims who could associate with secularists and leftist Jews and not compromise himself socially.
Last night, I engaged in an act of superstition. A dear friend of mine, aged 38, seems to be convinced that he will die at age 40 since his father died suddenly of heart failure at 40. He has spent most of his life praying and getting ready to pass on to the next world, in my opinion diminishing his joy in life. At one time I was committed to cheering him up. At this point I realized he is enjoying his symptoms.
I held the near empty bottle of Riad's organic Palestinian olive oil upside down and said to God, "Tell me how many years he will live." By the end of the 30s, I admit, it really did seem like time was running out. But it kept on slowly dripping until it reached 78. The last drop didn't fall, it just hovered there until I got bored of standing there with my arm raised. I used my finger to wipe out the last bit. 78 years. It's not forever, but it's more than 40 years. Or, however old Riad Hamad was when he died.
This little event reminded me of when Ribhi Ramlawi, the owner of Jerusalem Garden in Ann Arbor, died. I used to work there. Upon hearing of his sudden death, one of the other waitresses, Amy, burst into the kitchen and brought out the vat of hommos that had been prepared for the coming day. She told us to eat, because this was the last hommos Mr. R. had ever made. His hommos was truly the best hommos I ever had in my life.
I was so relieved to hear Riad Hamad had an Islamic burial. Nothing feels quite as empty as a leftist funeral without prayers. The brother who washed his body said part of Riad's brain was missing, as from a blow or a gunshot wound. I don't know why someone would have wanted to do this to him. I do know that embroidery is a powerful force. I remember wearing my embroidered Palestinian shawl and playing "This Land is Your Land" on my fiddle in Highland Park, New Jersey. The older Zionists went sort of white and crossed to the other side of the street when they saw me, as if they had seen a ghost. The younger psychotic Zionists tried to interrupt me as I played my violin, and when that failed, they formed a circle discussing me. One of them asked me where I got my shawl. He demanded to know how I got into the Occupied Territories. I refused to tell him but in truth I got my shawl from the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund. As I continued to play old American and Klezmer songs on my violin on the street during that festival, even though they were too timid to approach me, some orthodox Jews sent their children to tell me how much they liked my violin playing. There was something so powerful, almost magical, about that Palestinian embroidery.
Now I know why God made me forget to bring the gifts from Bethlehem. He wanted me to have them. In the years to come, I may need them to remind me of why I am alive. What am I doing here. I am here to struggle for Allah. The owner of the dry cleaners seemed to believe there was no doubt the tea stain could be removed. Maybe there is some hope for the life to come.
One thing I thought was so interesting about the JCRC commentary on my character was that Jonathon Haber compared me to Cleopatra. Many years ago an ex-fiance published a book of poetry in Italian, which includes a number of poems about me, one of which speaks of me swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at night, "naked as a Cleopatra." And here I am, middle aged, and some Jew pens an apparently permanent online commentary about me, again referring to me as Cleopatra.
[Joachim notes that Karin has some physical resemblance to Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemy Dynasty. See Cleopatra VII for more information.]
So I just wanted to mention something that I hope might mean something to Riad, if he can hear me out there, and all the Palestinians scattered in the world out there and beyond. I grew up in America, never feeling like I quite belonged here. My mother came here in search of feminism and my father came here in search of my mother. I always wanted to return to Europe. For most of my teenage years, that was what I planned to do. By the age of 20 I managed to charm a Swiss man into offering me his gold confirmation ring with his initial on it. His family owned land in Italy and I went to see it. Olive trees in a sandy orchard as far as the eye could see, and on the horizon, the speckled lights of the ancient city of Florence. The house was over 100 years old. He had been born there, as had his mother. It was beautiful. There was an oil painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall, and a terra cotta roof. Wine in barrels and olive oil and chickens running around in the yard. An ancient stone oven in the garden, where one could bake bread without overheating the house. The neighbors were old folks, drinking their grappa beneath the grapevines. Not too far away was his actual home in Switzerland, in the mountains, near crisp cold sparkling clean waterfalls and rivers that rushed through the dark green forests of the most beautiful region in the western world. His parents started fixing up the old house when they learned he had fallen in love with me, hoping for grandchildren, I suppose.
I just couldn't go through with it though. America was my home, and I had already fallen in love with Islam. Europe, as beautiful as it was, seemed to me to be a place whose time had come and gone. Now it was just old folks enjoying the scenery, waiting to die, essentially. The churches all empty, the women's wombs all barren. I invited him to join Islam, but he said he was just a simple village boy. He didn't think he could be something as exotic as a Muslim. So I left him. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I left him behind for the sake of Allah (not that I'm that great of a Muslim or anything). I accepted to live in this ridiculous country, the ugly and cheap United States of America.
Why?
Now I know why because Riad Hamad reminded me. He wanted me to have those gifts to remind me of why I am alive and why I am going to die. What am I doing here. I am here to struggle for the sake of Allah. I am here to remind you that there are more important things than olive trees as far as the eye can see. There is more to life than rings of gold and even fresh eggs from the chickens in the yard. That thing that makes life go forward is purpose. God wants every person to have a purpose, yours to unfold the true potential of your soul's longing. I would have been bored to death there. I need struggle.
And so do you. Because struggle is the essence of the seed which grows, simply to affirm its own self worth, and pushes its way through the darkness of the soil until it explodes, so to say, above the soil and becomes a flower, and then a fruit. That is what life is. You don't get the flower and the fruit unless you go through that struggle of sheer hope that what you are doing is the right thing, pushing your way through the darkness, searching for the Light, knowing it must be there.
All plants are Muslims so we have to learn the lesson from the plants. The Land is not the goal, it is a means. We struggle through the land, through our lives, through our every effort, because we are reaching for the Light. And the Eternal Light is the Nur of Allah.
I would rather be a Muslim in America than own every olive tree in the Mediterranean. Because on the day that I die, that is the only thing that is going to matter.
I am so happy Riad has found that Light and he is so lucky to have died as a Shaheed. I envy him.
Please make me worthy of a death as honorable as that of Riad Hamad and give me Paradise as well.
To Allah belongs the Kingdom, and the Glory, forever.
Amen.
===
SULLA SPIAGA DI VIAREGGIO
by Cosimo Pieracci
Vita: Madre di Parole
Ma ora il tuo sguardo brilla di vino e fatica, sorridi.
Sei solo un'ombra nell'aria densa
di questa discarica di sabbia.
Esercizi di yoga accanto alla striscia d'argento
generosa carezza che luna
stende qui come su altri mari.
Io scrivo con gli occhi pieni
di zanzare e di sonno.
Vorrei addormentarmi,
farlo possibilmente senza doverti baciare;
Tu non chiedi nulla e nemmeno saetti
all'improvviso la tua lingua attraverso le mie labbra
cosi mentre parlo o sbadiglio:
il sorprendente bacio del camaleonte!
Ti stendi leggera, aspetti il sonno, lo ottieni.
Dovro ancora lottare a lungo contro posto o poco distante da li.
La mattina e un paradiso:
sono venute le rondini, il sonno ha spento i motorini
e la giostra, un cono di silenzionsi gabbiani attraverssa
il latte dell'alba dove ti bagni
nuda come una Cleopatra.
Vedo la tua nuca andare verso l'acqua,
entrare nel rumore della risacca, sparire.
Il tuo pube torna al nostro giaciglio proprio
prima che l'oro cominci a colare sui passi lunghi
si muti magicamente in azzurro.
Le lingue del mare si srotolano sulla spiaggia,
tra le zampe di quattro bastardi ubbidienti e felici,
facendo una piccola schiuma nell'orgasmo di leccare il mondo.
Comprendo le'estasi di cui parlavi ieri alla mi mente
stanca nel momento in cui tornavi a sdraiarti sul ventre.
…Cosi le nere ombre della notte si sdraiano caute
sulla sabbia, copiando per non essere scorte, le forme del mondo…
Quanto poco possono sul tuo corpo le mie mani ora che sai
la dolcezza con cui ti carezza il tuo immenso amante di zaffiro.
I was rather astonished when I received the package because the stamps were stuck all over the box in such a disorganized fashion that the post office was not able to stamp them. Later, I soaked the cardboard in water to get the stamps off so I could reuse them. They were the pretty blue and gold Eid Mubarak 41 cent stamps.
Furthermore, there was a strangely long handwritten message written on the packing slip signed "Riad Hamad." I looked for it after I learned of his untimely demise but unfortunately I could not find it and I have no clear memory of what it said. I remember feeling strangely disturbed because of the tone of urgency with which the note asked me to let the world know what was happening to Bethlehem. A certain part of my brain asked, "What is wrong with him?" because most Islamic or Arabic relief agencies stick to glossy professional mailings free of personality. This charity worker seemed to really want me to know that it was Riad Hamad sending me these gifts from Palestine. I appreciated the gift items but was not sure why he seemed so urgently to feel that I should know his name.
I was even more astonished when I looked at the embroidered table cloth and saw that it had a faint round stain on it, as from a mug of tea.
The JCRC of Boston has hosted a website for years, entitled "MARRIAGE," which ponders the question of what my husband and I discuss over dinner. So for all you silly Zionists out there here is your answer! I asked my husband if he knew Riad Hamad and he told me, "Sure, you met him too, at the Al-Awda conference." It was one of our first dates when we were newly married. It was the day that Shaykh Yassin, Mufti of Jerusalem was murdered in his wheelchair by Israeli assassins in a helicopter. I heard him speak once, outdoors in downtown Cleveland during a rally for the release of our beloved brother Imam Jamil Al-Amin. I couldn't understand anything he was saying since it was in Arabic but his voice kept cracking. He reminded me of an old Native American Indian chief begging us to save his people, who were being massacred.
I told Joachim, my husband, "Your friend at PCWF sent us a stained tablecloth. I paid $100 for that tablecloth." He started laughing. "He sent you a used tablecloth?" We both cracked up. We decided not to ask for a refund since it was for charity but Joachim told me he'd email Riad to tease him about it. He never got around to emailing him though. (Men!)
Strangely, I was in such a rush to pack the family into the car to go to New Jersey for Christmas, that I actually forgot all the Christmas presents. It was totally embarrassing. But I remember thinking, there must be some reason that God didn't want me to let go of those things, although I did send my sister-in-law the gorgeous black shawl with red embroidery.
When I saw the news report that Riad Hamad was brutally murdered, I immediately remembered his name.
He was the weird guy who sent me the box of Christmas presents from Palestine. I saw his photo on the obituary and he did look familiar. He was someone with a strong and uninhibited personality. No wonder you could feel it just from the paper that he had touched. He was one of the few Muslims who could associate with secularists and leftist Jews and not compromise himself socially.
Last night, I engaged in an act of superstition. A dear friend of mine, aged 38, seems to be convinced that he will die at age 40 since his father died suddenly of heart failure at 40. He has spent most of his life praying and getting ready to pass on to the next world, in my opinion diminishing his joy in life. At one time I was committed to cheering him up. At this point I realized he is enjoying his symptoms.
I held the near empty bottle of Riad's organic Palestinian olive oil upside down and said to God, "Tell me how many years he will live." By the end of the 30s, I admit, it really did seem like time was running out. But it kept on slowly dripping until it reached 78. The last drop didn't fall, it just hovered there until I got bored of standing there with my arm raised. I used my finger to wipe out the last bit. 78 years. It's not forever, but it's more than 40 years. Or, however old Riad Hamad was when he died.
This little event reminded me of when Ribhi Ramlawi, the owner of Jerusalem Garden in Ann Arbor, died. I used to work there. Upon hearing of his sudden death, one of the other waitresses, Amy, burst into the kitchen and brought out the vat of hommos that had been prepared for the coming day. She told us to eat, because this was the last hommos Mr. R. had ever made. His hommos was truly the best hommos I ever had in my life.
I was so relieved to hear Riad Hamad had an Islamic burial. Nothing feels quite as empty as a leftist funeral without prayers. The brother who washed his body said part of Riad's brain was missing, as from a blow or a gunshot wound. I don't know why someone would have wanted to do this to him. I do know that embroidery is a powerful force. I remember wearing my embroidered Palestinian shawl and playing "This Land is Your Land" on my fiddle in Highland Park, New Jersey. The older Zionists went sort of white and crossed to the other side of the street when they saw me, as if they had seen a ghost. The younger psychotic Zionists tried to interrupt me as I played my violin, and when that failed, they formed a circle discussing me. One of them asked me where I got my shawl. He demanded to know how I got into the Occupied Territories. I refused to tell him but in truth I got my shawl from the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund. As I continued to play old American and Klezmer songs on my violin on the street during that festival, even though they were too timid to approach me, some orthodox Jews sent their children to tell me how much they liked my violin playing. There was something so powerful, almost magical, about that Palestinian embroidery.
Now I know why God made me forget to bring the gifts from Bethlehem. He wanted me to have them. In the years to come, I may need them to remind me of why I am alive. What am I doing here. I am here to struggle for Allah. The owner of the dry cleaners seemed to believe there was no doubt the tea stain could be removed. Maybe there is some hope for the life to come.
One thing I thought was so interesting about the JCRC commentary on my character was that Jonathon Haber compared me to Cleopatra. Many years ago an ex-fiance published a book of poetry in Italian, which includes a number of poems about me, one of which speaks of me swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at night, "naked as a Cleopatra." And here I am, middle aged, and some Jew pens an apparently permanent online commentary about me, again referring to me as Cleopatra.
[Joachim notes that Karin has some physical resemblance to Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemy Dynasty. See Cleopatra VII for more information.]
So I just wanted to mention something that I hope might mean something to Riad, if he can hear me out there, and all the Palestinians scattered in the world out there and beyond. I grew up in America, never feeling like I quite belonged here. My mother came here in search of feminism and my father came here in search of my mother. I always wanted to return to Europe. For most of my teenage years, that was what I planned to do. By the age of 20 I managed to charm a Swiss man into offering me his gold confirmation ring with his initial on it. His family owned land in Italy and I went to see it. Olive trees in a sandy orchard as far as the eye could see, and on the horizon, the speckled lights of the ancient city of Florence. The house was over 100 years old. He had been born there, as had his mother. It was beautiful. There was an oil painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall, and a terra cotta roof. Wine in barrels and olive oil and chickens running around in the yard. An ancient stone oven in the garden, where one could bake bread without overheating the house. The neighbors were old folks, drinking their grappa beneath the grapevines. Not too far away was his actual home in Switzerland, in the mountains, near crisp cold sparkling clean waterfalls and rivers that rushed through the dark green forests of the most beautiful region in the western world. His parents started fixing up the old house when they learned he had fallen in love with me, hoping for grandchildren, I suppose.
I just couldn't go through with it though. America was my home, and I had already fallen in love with Islam. Europe, as beautiful as it was, seemed to me to be a place whose time had come and gone. Now it was just old folks enjoying the scenery, waiting to die, essentially. The churches all empty, the women's wombs all barren. I invited him to join Islam, but he said he was just a simple village boy. He didn't think he could be something as exotic as a Muslim. So I left him. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I left him behind for the sake of Allah (not that I'm that great of a Muslim or anything). I accepted to live in this ridiculous country, the ugly and cheap United States of America.
Why?
Now I know why because Riad Hamad reminded me. He wanted me to have those gifts to remind me of why I am alive and why I am going to die. What am I doing here. I am here to struggle for the sake of Allah. I am here to remind you that there are more important things than olive trees as far as the eye can see. There is more to life than rings of gold and even fresh eggs from the chickens in the yard. That thing that makes life go forward is purpose. God wants every person to have a purpose, yours to unfold the true potential of your soul's longing. I would have been bored to death there. I need struggle.
And so do you. Because struggle is the essence of the seed which grows, simply to affirm its own self worth, and pushes its way through the darkness of the soil until it explodes, so to say, above the soil and becomes a flower, and then a fruit. That is what life is. You don't get the flower and the fruit unless you go through that struggle of sheer hope that what you are doing is the right thing, pushing your way through the darkness, searching for the Light, knowing it must be there.
All plants are Muslims so we have to learn the lesson from the plants. The Land is not the goal, it is a means. We struggle through the land, through our lives, through our every effort, because we are reaching for the Light. And the Eternal Light is the Nur of Allah.
I would rather be a Muslim in America than own every olive tree in the Mediterranean. Because on the day that I die, that is the only thing that is going to matter.
I am so happy Riad has found that Light and he is so lucky to have died as a Shaheed. I envy him.
Please make me worthy of a death as honorable as that of Riad Hamad and give me Paradise as well.
To Allah belongs the Kingdom, and the Glory, forever.
Amen.
===
SULLA SPIAGA DI VIAREGGIO
by Cosimo Pieracci
Vita: Madre di Parole
Ma ora il tuo sguardo brilla di vino e fatica, sorridi.
Sei solo un'ombra nell'aria densa
di questa discarica di sabbia.
Esercizi di yoga accanto alla striscia d'argento
generosa carezza che luna
stende qui come su altri mari.
Io scrivo con gli occhi pieni
di zanzare e di sonno.
Vorrei addormentarmi,
farlo possibilmente senza doverti baciare;
Tu non chiedi nulla e nemmeno saetti
all'improvviso la tua lingua attraverso le mie labbra
cosi mentre parlo o sbadiglio:
il sorprendente bacio del camaleonte!
Ti stendi leggera, aspetti il sonno, lo ottieni.
Dovro ancora lottare a lungo contro posto o poco distante da li.
La mattina e un paradiso:
sono venute le rondini, il sonno ha spento i motorini
e la giostra, un cono di silenzionsi gabbiani attraverssa
il latte dell'alba dove ti bagni
nuda come una Cleopatra.
Vedo la tua nuca andare verso l'acqua,
entrare nel rumore della risacca, sparire.
Il tuo pube torna al nostro giaciglio proprio
prima che l'oro cominci a colare sui passi lunghi
si muti magicamente in azzurro.
Le lingue del mare si srotolano sulla spiaggia,
tra le zampe di quattro bastardi ubbidienti e felici,
facendo una piccola schiuma nell'orgasmo di leccare il mondo.
Comprendo le'estasi di cui parlavi ieri alla mi mente
stanca nel momento in cui tornavi a sdraiarti sul ventre.
…Cosi le nere ombre della notte si sdraiano caute
sulla sabbia, copiando per non essere scorte, le forme del mondo…
Quanto poco possono sul tuo corpo le mie mani ora che sai
la dolcezza con cui ti carezza il tuo immenso amante di zaffiro.
4 comments:
Hello and sorry to hear about the loss of your friends. I went to the PCWF site and now I've got some nice ideas for Christmas. So thanks for the link.
I like this blog. We share the same ideas about Zionism, only it seems, from different perspectives. Yours as a Muslim. Mine as a Christian Baptist. And this fellow Joachim has researched and written some fascinating articles. I look forward to reading them all. So now I'll share with y'all some of my views.
Guys razz me all the time on the military blogs I post at. I'm retired US Army. They call me a terrorist bomber. Simply because I inform them that Israel has no legitimite authority to exist. And that the Palestinians do.
I tell them about the USS Liberty. How it was a deliberate attack. To get us into a war with Egypt. And how our military leaders of that day all thought the same. But they just brush it off and say Israel is a wonderful nation who'd never hurt anyone. Least of all the United States.
And when I tell them how the Holocaust is largely unfounded, where six million bodies or their remains have never been found, then they get a little riled.
Then when I add that Holocaust teaching in our public schools is merely a ruse, a methodology of irreligious brain washing; to replace the ultimate suffering in the universe as that of the Crucifixion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with that of the alleged suffering of the Jews during their so-called Holocaust. Well, then they get really riled up.
Some have even accused me of being with the ADL or JDL. An agent provacateur I suppose. But then I remind them that 9/11 would've never happened if we weren't in bed with Israel. And that shuts them up.
Now, Karin is it? Why would you soak the stamps off a package to re-use them? Isn't your husband the inventor of some sort of dynamic computer technology? So I'd think you'd have the dough to just by some stamps. Are all Muslim women so economical?
So maybe that's what I need. A nice Muslim woman. Someone to walk ten paces behind me and save on the household postage costs. I'm joshing with you of course. That's just my way.
A Baptist and a Muslim in marriage? I don't know. You can't go out into the woods and shoot a bowl of hummus. That's another joke in case you didn't notice. Baptists love to glean things from Mother Nature at gunpoint.
Anyway, Karin, I hope you too were joshing when you said America was "ridiculous and ugly and cheap". Because I've been to Italy. And my great grandpa sang at La Scala. But the whole place is run down. Some might refer to it as "rustic charm". Although really. It's run down. Communism will do that to a country.
And in most any other counrty on Earth. We'd all be jailed as political prisoners. For inciting hatred against "The Jews". Canada. England. France. Germany. Austria. Australia. They're all holding political prisoners for such offenses.
The 1st Amendment is God incarnate in government. And it exists at only one place on Earth. That's right. The United States of America.
Sure America is ridiculous and ugly and cheap. Just always remember. Many brave men died to afford us the right to say as much. Go to Saudi Arabia and say such a thing against them. Because they'll remove your voice box sans anesthesia. You know it. I know it. And the Sultan of bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud knows it.
Well, that's enough of my rambling. See y'all around the board.
Greetz!
I am an Indian Muslim from the elite families of hyderabad , that was a muslim state annexed to India in 1947.
My parents had to leave their home because of the racist treatment of Muslims by hindus.
My father , a doctor from the imperial college of london and my mother , a graduate of the Islamic Aligarh University became nomads , travelling from land to land working for the WHO and UNDP.
I was born in 1956 , only seeing my family home during summer vacations.
Now, I haven't seen it for 35 years.
That said, in University I met a Palestinian from Jordan palestinian camps,a well dressed , soft spoken guy .
He apparently was only interested in me because I was the cleverest in the class.
We got married and then the tirade of abuse started not only by him but by his family and friends.
Palestinians have this notion that all indians are beggars , so they must be treated likewise, forgetting that they themselves live in squalid conditions.
I don''t know if Israel has to blame for the Palestinians becoming such nasty people , or it is an in born trait.
Thirty years later, I still fight for the Palestinians wherever I go, despite the wrongs that they inflicted on me.
I cry for GAza, and my children are very patriotic about Palestine.
We boycott all israeli and American products( the Palestinians don't), my sons are rappers and all their rap is about the oppressed of this world.
their site is www.fightbackrecords.com.
Lastly let me congratulate you on your Islam and send you my condolences for Riad.
How can you fight the cancer called Zionism?It has penetrated deep in every cell of the world. The only solution would be the end of all humanity!
Dear Anonymous,
Palestinians suffer from trauma while they already suffer from PTSD. It makes interpersonal relations difficult. Indian and Pakistani Muslims often have the same problem usually less than Palestinians but more so since the US began to attack Pakistan.
I apologize if I may sound insensitive, but according to my observations as a complete outsider to Palestinian, Pakistani or Indian Muslim culture, you might have had a similar experience if you had been a Palestinian woman that had married into a Pakistani or Indian Muslim family.
As for fighting Zionism, I would like to work in film because popular culture creates the public perception of national interest, which determines international foreign policies as Melani McAlister argues in Epic Encounters.
If you like to watch American films, you might find my attempts at screenwriting to be interesting.
Both Devorah's Two Weddings and Two Weeks in September are based on real people and events.
Today the Planet of the Apes remake is the only pro-Palestinian Hollywood film -- at least when it is viewed as an allegory. In addition, the indie film entitled The Visitor very subtlely and implicitly introduces a little of the Palestinian experience, and even You Don't Mess with the Zohan may have made a positive contribution as I suggest in Zohan Offends for One State.
Dear Blue Eyed Knight,
I passed along your comment to Karin. If she does not reply to you directly, I will put together a comment in response.
Best,
Joachim
BTW, I recently attended a Baptist-Muslim interfaith conference, where there was a lot of discussion of the influence of Muslim African-American slaves and there descendants on the Baptist form of Christianity.
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