Mourning Khalid Said

This post is for mourning Khalid Said who was brutally murdered by the Egyptian police.

 

Translation and Beauty…

After I went to Chile, I’m trying to expose myself to music of different languages. Spanish and French mainly. From time to time I find songs with English version.

After listening to the English version, I still don’t find the beauty I feel in my heart when I listen to the original language. I may not understand every word, but the original language always reach my heart, which is usually not the case with translated English versions.

If you don’t know, I’m the editor of the Arabic version of Global Voices Online. I edit translations from the English version to the Arabic one. I do this mainly for my interest to increase Arabic content on the web. I also see original posts in Spanish translated to English. In translations, I don’t see the beauty of the original language.

Originality has music, has a different taste, something you can enjoy, adds to your soul. If you can, learn as many languages as you can, to enjoy its originality.

He who doesn’t deserve to live…

This video (via dear Rasha) is from the musical Notre Dame De Paris based on the novel by the same name by Victor Hugo. The story, along with the music of course, always strikes me deeply. Seeing what westerners accuse Arabs or Easterners with based deeply in the western soul since the Middle Ages.

How pure beauty can be seen as pure impurity. How all what matters is being a virgin. How can a corrupted person have all the authority to destroy this beauty as long as it didn’t obey his lustful needs. How are some people are just driven by their sexual needs. How can all the people obey blindly the human high authority and destroy this beauty under the same accusations of protecting purity and other so called social holy wars to preserve morality.

 Who will cast the first stone at her, he who does not deserve to live…

فصل الأقاويل في مسألة التمويل

منذ زمن بعيد والكلام يزيد عن مسألة التمويل. بدايةً فأنا أؤمن أنه لا يمكن أن تكون منخرطاً في عمل عام لا يهدف إلى الربح بدون توفير شيء من اثنين، إما أن تكون من أغنى الأغنياء وعندك من المال ما يُمكَّنك من اتمام هذا العمل، وإما أن تبحث عن ممولين. وللأسف فإن معظم ممولي العالم العربي (على الأقل في دائرتي المعرفية) هم ممولين سياسيين من نوعية صدام حسين ومعمر الأرز القذافي. إذا فالأكثر عملية هو البحث عن ممولين أجانب لدعم عملك الغير هادف للربح.

 

حتى الآن منطقياً لا يوجد مشاكل، حتى تظهر الكلمة المشكلة، الكلمة الخازوق، الكلمة التي لا تسمح بمرور كلام بعدها، كلمة إسرائيل، ومن ثَمّ التطبيع وبيع القضية وخلافه. دعوني أناقش كلمة التطبيع.

 

التطبيع هو إقامة علاقات طبيعية مع دولة إسرائيل أو ما يسميه البعض بالكيان الصهيوني، أو أي كان الاسم، فالأسماء عادةً لا تهم طالما كان المعنى مفهوماً. أنا ضد دولة إسرائيل وممارساتها ضد الإنسانية إلخ، ولكن دعونا نتكلم عن الواقع قليلاً. إسرائيل دولة لها سفارات أو علاقات دبلوماسية مع معظم الدول العربية. معنى علاقة دبلوماسية أي عبور المال بطريقة أو بأخرى بين هذه الدول.

نعود بعد الفاصل السابق إلى مسألة التمويل. هناك مشكلة كبيرة، بما إن معظم دول العالم (أو كل دول العالم المتاح فيها ممولين) تربطها وإسرائيل علاقات دبلوماسية فبالتالي من المحتمل أن يكون أي من هؤلاء الممولين المهتمين بالشرق الأوسط أو العالم العربي (أخبرني عن الفارق في الفترة الراهنة) أو ربما جميعهم، لهم علاقات أو مكتب في إسرائيل. فهل كل منظمة لها مكتب في إسرائيل تكون منظمة مشبوهة ويحرم العمل بها؟ هذا سؤال المليون دولار كما يقول الغربيون.

إذا كان هذا صحيحاً، وهو في رأيي غير صحيح. هل نعتبر كل من يعمل في الحكومة المصرية مثلا مُطبعاً؟ هل دفع الضرائب للحكومة المصرية تطبيعاً؟ هل التعامل مع الحكومة المصرية تطبيعاً أو تعاملاً مشبوهاً؟ بما إن الحكومة المصرية لديها أرض مصرية مسماة سفارة في تل أبيب؟

في رأيي فإن المحاسبة تكون على الأهداف المطلوب تمويلها وليس أي شيء آخر. وسلام خاص إلى عرب 48 المظلومين بشدة من قبل أناس كثيرين يلقبون أنفسهم بالمثقفين وهو أبعد ما يكون عن الثقافة

مواضيع مرتبطة:

العملاء و اليافطة الخشبية.

Accept the other? Be the other Part Two

As many westerners call for Arab/Eastern accepting “the other”, what do they mean by accepting? Do you mean accepting their mere existence? Do you mean discovering them? Do you mean discussing the deep cultural / religious details? Do you mean mingling between the cultures? Do you mean absorbing one culture in the other?

Let me explain 2 sides of a coin in the Egyptian society, the 2 extremes. We have extremely religious people who require some rituals to be strictly done so that you are in the “righteous” side, like having a long beard with a short galabeyya or whatever. We have extremely non-religious people who think religious people are so wrong and “regressive” so they want to require their neighborhood to do some rituals strictly like forcing them to drink wine, have premarital sex when they don’t want, either that or they don’t believe in freedom, etc..

Both are extremists in a way or another, both do not view freedom as a way of living. Both do not see the other, they just want to be “the one”, “the ONLY one”.

The same applies between people from different countries, though one thing adds here is the stereotypes between different people like I mentioned in the beginning of my last post. BUT, there are still a major difference westerners usually do not realize till they visit countries like Egypt or other countries in the Middle East.

I heard many stories about racism against Arabs, Muslims, Eastern people in general in Europe or the states. Racism not just through extra security measures issues by the governments, but worse, racial actions committed by normal citizens, and they are not a few incidents. Hate crimes are illegal by law, but they are there, they happen, they exist, they exist with a considerable ratio.

When westerners come to the Middle East, and they feel the hospitality they receive, not only from their hosts, but from the average citizen, when the opposite isn’t usually happening, at least not in the same “warmth”.

There is a story of an American Jew who visited Saudi Arabia where you can read here, and how he was thrilled by the tolerance he experienced. This is a very awkward situation to think of from a western point of view. An American Jew going to Saudi Arabia, just imagine that? He is not dead yet? Nope! Those was his own words:

Every man was generous, seemed delighted to be talking with an American, was open-minded or at least willing to have a frank conversation.

See?

Accept the other? Part One

In the past days I was enjoying the company of some Danish and Egyptian artists. Artists of different kinds, music, food, photography, you can summarize it as just Art. We kept talking about Egypt and Denmark, the Egyptians and the Danes. We kept exploring each other, from different aspects. And in the same time, we mingled with average people, who might not always share the same views, or the same perspectives.

And as time kept passing by, I began to think. We always notice people talking about “the other”, accepting “the other”, communicating with “the other”, discovering “the other”. Is that expression really right? Should this expression exist in the first place? Are people around the world that different?

The Danes told me how some of them are still believing in the stereotype that Egypt is a desert with pyramids, with people travelling by camels. And I know Egyptians whose only information about Denmark is the Muhammad’s cartoons. Stereotypes stereotypes stereotypes, stereotypes everywhere and allover. If you considered a discussion starting point that every country or every country’s people believe in some kind of stereotype image of other country’s people, how will you continue the discussion about accepting?

Day 4: The food mixology!

This is the 4th Day of “Streets In Cairo” event by the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute

This day was a special day, Danish and Egyptian chefs spent hours in the Town House Factory preparing Egyptian food components while the DJs were preparing themselves for a major performance!

They brought different kinds of food and fruits. Apricot, water melons, okra, green salads, Egyptian beans, mint, even some yogurt. The idea was preparing Egyptian food in the Danish way.

 

 

For me this was like presenting a new perspective of things. Showing the same everyday usual from a different angle. We know the food, we know its usual taste, we know its form, but this time, everything is different. Shape, taste, smell, everything is just new.

We had this meal of fool (Egyptian beans), yoghurt.

Was delicious, exactly like enjoying new ideas.

Then the chefs prepared some new way of preparing watermelon:

Watermelons with okra, onions along with green salads.

People were enjoying themselves :)

 

We saw some geeky children, spending time dancing and working on laptops!

During and after this, Egyptian and Danish DJs started performing.

The Egyptian DJ Shehta began first by playing Sha’bi songs

The people were dancing and enjoying:

Event he Danish chefs joined!

Shehta was playing with the Danish DJ Asmund Boye Kverneland, who said that the Egyptian music fitted perfectly with his own style.

Different Danish DJs continued playing their own styles, it felt very open. Consuming different kinds of ideas and feelings.

This kind of events gives me the feeling that people are the same everywhere in the whole world, but they just see things from different perspectives, different point of views. But all the senses are the same, all the inside are the same. Only perspectives changes. What we need is communicate and discover. I don’t like using the term other, since it emphasizes that we are different, the thing which I don’t believe in since we are the same.

What we need is, discovery, communication and peaceful reaction between different perspectives.

Day 3: Art and Openmindness

Third part of the “Streets In Cairo” event.

We spent day 3 with the Danish and Egyptian DJs and photographers around Sayeda Zeinab area, in a small neighborhood beside Ibn Tulun Mosque, in Al Khalifa area.

The Egyptian artist Aalam Wassef introduced us to his workshop

He was telling us how was the people in the neighborhood were open-minded and didn’t impose the, what we called, Shakespearean right or wrong. How they just understood what is the real meaning for freedom towards his arts, towards cultural events as long as he didn’t “provoke” the normal people. For example, the example he mentioned, not kissing his girlfriend in public.

The path to Aalam’s workshop

We put our bags in his workshop then we went around the Egyptian traditional (ahwa) cafes around the corner, the people were very welcoming. Everyone is shouting “Welcome” to the Danish. In contrast, had a nice talk with Katrine Ring, one of the Danish DJs, she said that people think they are rude because they are not that warm or welcoming but it is just their nature. She said that in some countries she can spend several days without having a conversation with anybody, but in Cairo, she is talking everyday to 3 or 4 people she never met before.

The crowd then were scattered everyone in a direction, taking photographs and talking with people who know Aalam, then they went back to the hotel, getting ready for the next day’s major event.

Day 2: Streets In Cairo: Meeting the Photography Explorer

Please click here for Day 1, and please follow DEDI twitter account for more news.

In Day 2 we spent most of the day in the Viennoise talking with the Danish photographers and artists. Had a great talk with Charlotte Haslund from Copenhagen. Her main activity is documentaries and art photography in several countries.

We talked about how photography exhibitions can expose details which are not noticed generally, giving feelings should be noticed more by people.

Charlotte Haslund the explorer.

In one of her projects, Natives: the Danes, she tried to reverse the colonial point of view by displaying the Danes as if they are colonized natives.

 

I was amazed at how reversing stereotypes can do outstanding changes to the viewers mind.

 

In her visit to Palestine, she was trying to portrait how the world is seeing the Palestinian cause in the form of a documentary and some photos. Many people are talking, but are the rest really listening?

You can know more about this amazing character here.

Day 1: Streets of Cairo: The Viennoise, the wedding, and the rest…

Music is a language that has no boundaries, and art is an international language that anyone can understand. “Streets of Cairo” is a cultural event taking place in, of course, Cairo, for 10 days. The event is basically about social interaction between Danish artists and cooks to communicate with normal Egyptian people and discover the Egyptian life and spirit. It is arranged by DEDI

So yesterday decided to see what is happening, thinking that I would enjoying meeting some bright minds and enjoy the interaction between different cultures. The Danish people were residing in an old building in downtown Cairo called The Viennoise. I entered then I found out they were showing some presentations, the first about how to help drug addicts to facilitate treating them presenting images from drug addicts in Denmark, then the second was about forming images on metals using LASER.

Some children were there which spread a cheerful spirit in the air :)
 


There was some nice discussion going on, we even talked about Facebook privacy :)
After a while we went to a Shaabi Wedding (Folk Wedding), which was an amazing experience. The people there were thrilled to see the “foreigners” arriving, joining them in celebrations and dancing :)




The DJ (Egyptian) were nearly climaxing with the music (all Egyptian contemporary folk music)


And here some of the pictures I took for the wedding celebrations:





Will post more in the following days :)