Abdali
Senator (1k+ posts)
The Westerner is a bag of slimy hypocrisy---like nasal snot
Friday, March 19 2010 @ 09:43 PM CDT
After War After War
Another Year, Another Post
The Westerner is a bag of slimy hypocrisy...like nasal snots...and am not just talking about governments here, am talking of "people".
By Layla Anwar
Remembering, not that I have ever forgotten...remembering not that I have been given a chance to forget...
This post may not be a coherent, cohesive one... who gives a fuck ? I certainly don't...there is nothing coherent or cohesive about occupation and exile...and it's not like am up for a Pulitzer price in Literature either...
This post may be a collection of rambling lines...so what ? I've heard nothing but ramblings and rumblings for the past 7 years...and am no more royalist than the king...
This post might have no beginning and no end, this post might be a reflection of a state of limbo...who cares? It's been a limbo for two decades already...
The Westerner is a bag of slimy hypocrisy...like nasal snots...and am not just talking about governments here, am talking of "people". You'd have every aspect of your life destroyed because of their "free choice" as in "democratically" electing their governments, and they get all flustered if you give them the royal finger...and tell them -- fuck you people of the lie...you are nothing but deceit.
I mean how could you ? How could you insult them, use foul language, indulge in vulgarity, how could you speak their own language ?! Only they, are allowed to fuck you and the "good kind souls" among them come and "save you" from their fucking your life...
That's the West for you - in one simple paragraph. Oh and you have to be so grateful too...because they "reached out" for you...but you just don't want to be saved, you are a stubborn, obstinate creature - you want Justice...that does not go too well in their books...you know why ? because these people don't care about justice, their whole lives are based on blatant injustices...their whole lifestyle is based on injustices, their whole system is based on Injustice...oh yes it sure is...and you need not be a reader of contemporary history either...but these bastards want you with permanent blinkers on...like those donkeys they can lead by making them smell a carrot dangling in front...
And if you reject, loudly reject both the donkey and the sheep, you are not one of them....and you will never be one of them...
Ah these Arabs, ah these Muslims, terribly unruly...then they would pull out some article or another and stick it under your nose and tell you -- see, see how terribly oppressive, oppressed, you people are -- see ?!
And that after they've blown your home, your family, your kids, your life to fucking pieces...like a jigsaw puzzle...
And you go searching for the pieces, trying to make it whole again...but you know you can't...you know it has become an impossibility...but never mind, as long as you don't insult those sons of bitches...as long as you keep your "dignified" posture, on four, looking for the pieces...while they shove another article under your nose telling you how oppressive, oppressed you are...
We were all gathered in the dark room, in one corner of the room, huddled, almost piled up on top of another...like corpses about to be collectively buried in some anonymous mass grave...there was a little candle burning, flickering, imperceptibly so...maybe the only warmth, for we were shivering...
Each round we'd think the time has come...the time has come with the walls shaking and the windows shattering...we stopped replacing them...we just used garbage bags and tape instead...maybe that was a symbol for what was to come later...tape your mouth, seal your lips while your life has become a pile of garbage...
I remember each one would give the other "instructions", if you so and so is still alive, he/she should not forget to do so and so...and with every round, we'd say our prayers all over again, asking forgiveness for our short lived lives, our failures and omissions, and remind one another of the will...if you are still alive, remember, promise you will remember... I suppose another way of reaching immortality in those deadly minutes that preceded and followed every round of Freedom...
At first there were sirens, and some would scream "ghara, ghara, here they come again" (air raid, air raid) as if we had a say in the matter, as if we could stop it, as if we controlled the sky or those who rode it...so we huddled again and again...like terrified animals before a storm, before an earthquake...
When the sirens stopped working, it was the brave ones who went to the mosques and start chanting Allahu Akbar - God is the Greatest...these became our sirens -- Allahu Akbar...
In the aftermath of each round of Freedom and Liberation, each would take a deep breath, and try to reach someone else, another relative, a neighbor, to check on them...
Rosaries - praying beads would be left on each one's seat, marking it as -- this is my place, this is where I was when it all happened...marking our territory with praying beads...half angels and half animals, surviving on prayer and instinct...awaiting death...
It's funny how it is all coming back, as if it was yesterday...it's like a closed locked door and I just turn in the key, open it and here it is all over again...
There are things I don't want to remember, but they impose themselves on me, imperiously so...and it's like one scene takes me to another one, like in a train ride...like a film I can't stop...like a film I am anxiously waiting for to end...
One scene leads to another, like in a labyrinth...no wonder this is a door I never wanted to open...
War after War after War...back in the tunnel, swirling back...subtracting years, 1991, the fireworks of another liberation. 1980, 1973, 1967...I remember them all...one by one...
What is there to say ? Apart from swinging from shivers to numbness back to shivers, back to nothing...
The same scene repeats itself...windows shattering, plastic and tapes, glued to the radio for the latest news, hoping batteries won't run out, and more sirens...all the sirens sound the same...Baghdad and beyond -- same sirens, same wars...
Israeli air raids in 1967 and 1973, I was there too...I laugh when I think about it, laugh sarcastically, as if Destiny wanted me to be a witness...
I remember another shelter...this one was very damp...it was in the basement of a building...not really a shelter but more like an underground storage room...it smelled bad...humidity and piss...I remember Dad grabbing the radio, and Mom pulling me by the arm - Yalla Layla, let's go...and I'd hear the thunder outside shaking the earth beneath my feet...and after so many rounds of "punishment" from the Sky, I'd say to my mother - do we really have to go to this dark room, can't we just die here in our home ?
I remember her just pulling me by the arm down the stairs -- no time for a reply, every minute counted...hurrying down the stairs whilst everything shook...and ending up in that dark humid, smelly room, smelling of rot and piss...there would be several families there...again each family would take a corner, gather and huddle together...waiting for the final verdict, waiting for the final sentence, waiting...to see if God, the Universe, MIG fighter jets...decide who will live and who will die that day...
And so it is in this part of the world, from 2010 to all the way back...their raids and bullets fly over your head taking you from up and their articles take you from down....and they still shove them under your nose telling you how oppressive - oppressed you are...
Well I did warn, I did say I am not sure how or when this will end...I knew when I turned that key into that locked door, I was opening a can of worms...
Needless to say I had much difficulty falling asleep, and when I eventually did, I was woken up every hour or so with terrible nightmares. I am not sure if nightmare is the correct word, more like very powerful dreams, one sequence after another, that left me drenched in cold sweat, gasping for air...
I could not fall asleep, even though I was dead tired...I kept tossing and turning and out of the blue images of my dying grandmother flashed before my eyes...I saw when uncle handed me her medical report, the first thing I read was - Prognosis Negative. It was too late to do anything. Not that there was much we could do in view of the circumstances...the family decided not to tell her how ill she was...but she knew...
I remember being by her side and holding her frail transparent hands, with the blue veins showing, all dried up...I said " Bibi, it will all be fine " - she smiled and said "I know why am so ill, it's the wars, they killed me...I kept the frights inside and now they are killing me..."
Do those who pride themselves on Liberation and Mission Accomplished ever think of how "frights kept inside" actually act like delayed time bombs and bullets? Do the Medical Associations of the "civilized" world, ever consider the long term effects, of such a "negative prognosis" ? I very much doubt it...I very much doubt that Bibi or the thousand others will ever cross their callous indifferent minds...
So against this background of specific memories, I finally managed to doze off, only to be shaken out of this much desired state by a potent sequence of a dream...
I dreamt it was pitch black all around me...I was in some airport tarmac, I had just landed and about to cross a border...I was carrying no luggage, there was no suitcase waiting for me...I only had a small plastic bag with essentials in it...
I saw my dad waiting for me on the other side of the fence...I had to go through customs but I had no papers, no documents...they checked and checked again the contents of my plastic bag, I was delayed...I told my dad, I will join them later on, I am being kept here for a while...
The second sequence was also very potent...I then saw myself in a gathering of men, Arab men from different nationalities...supposedly "supporters of the cause", they were just sitting drinking coffee and smoking...and theorizing...they were Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, for the most part...and at the same time they were trying to sell me things, goods, stuff that was worthless...I said to one of them, but I have already paid you so much, and I got nothing in return, why should I pay you more...you have given me nothing...so he retorted - come on you know how much we care about you, we even gave you a discount... I replied - a discount for what, you gave me nothing, I gave you everything I had... So one of the guys hugged me and said - you know we are brothers and I said - are we really ?....I left this gathering very upset, and headed to the empty street, again it was pitch black...again I was carrying nothing but this plastic bag...
The third sequence was the most telling....as I was walking down that dark street, a car pulls up on the curb, I noticed it had no lights, I felt danger...the man in the car said - have no fear I live here in this street...but he had an Egyptian accent and he was driving a car that had no Egyptian license plates...and in the dream I was not in Egypt...I knew he was lying and that I was in trouble...He got out of the car, he was a very big man, looked like a monster, he just put his hands on my mouth and he tried to rape me...I fought back as hard as I could, I wanted to scream, shout, but he suffocated my voice with his big hands, I had a small alarm in my hand, like a small siren, emitting the same sound when the bombs were about to fall...I sounded the siren, it was loud...I could hear it in the empty street, I was waiting for my "brothers" to show up -- no one did....
I woke up trembling...I felt so nauseous I wanted to vomit, but I had nothing in my stomach to vomit...I laid in bed for a while gathering my senses, reminding myself it was just a dream...only to realize that it was no dream, it was reality...
Iraq was betrayed and raped by the Arab "brothers" first..
An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...
Who am I ? The eternal Question . Have not figured it out fully yet . All you need to know about me is that I am a Middle Easterner, an Arab Woman - into my 40's and old enough to know better. I have no homeland per se. I live in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Egypt simultaneously...All the rest is icing on the cake.
Friday, March 19 2010 @ 09:43 PM CDT
After War After War
Another Year, Another Post
The Westerner is a bag of slimy hypocrisy...like nasal snots...and am not just talking about governments here, am talking of "people".
By Layla Anwar
Remembering, not that I have ever forgotten...remembering not that I have been given a chance to forget...
This post may not be a coherent, cohesive one... who gives a fuck ? I certainly don't...there is nothing coherent or cohesive about occupation and exile...and it's not like am up for a Pulitzer price in Literature either...
This post may be a collection of rambling lines...so what ? I've heard nothing but ramblings and rumblings for the past 7 years...and am no more royalist than the king...
This post might have no beginning and no end, this post might be a reflection of a state of limbo...who cares? It's been a limbo for two decades already...
The Westerner is a bag of slimy hypocrisy...like nasal snots...and am not just talking about governments here, am talking of "people". You'd have every aspect of your life destroyed because of their "free choice" as in "democratically" electing their governments, and they get all flustered if you give them the royal finger...and tell them -- fuck you people of the lie...you are nothing but deceit.
I mean how could you ? How could you insult them, use foul language, indulge in vulgarity, how could you speak their own language ?! Only they, are allowed to fuck you and the "good kind souls" among them come and "save you" from their fucking your life...
That's the West for you - in one simple paragraph. Oh and you have to be so grateful too...because they "reached out" for you...but you just don't want to be saved, you are a stubborn, obstinate creature - you want Justice...that does not go too well in their books...you know why ? because these people don't care about justice, their whole lives are based on blatant injustices...their whole lifestyle is based on injustices, their whole system is based on Injustice...oh yes it sure is...and you need not be a reader of contemporary history either...but these bastards want you with permanent blinkers on...like those donkeys they can lead by making them smell a carrot dangling in front...
And if you reject, loudly reject both the donkey and the sheep, you are not one of them....and you will never be one of them...
Ah these Arabs, ah these Muslims, terribly unruly...then they would pull out some article or another and stick it under your nose and tell you -- see, see how terribly oppressive, oppressed, you people are -- see ?!
And that after they've blown your home, your family, your kids, your life to fucking pieces...like a jigsaw puzzle...
And you go searching for the pieces, trying to make it whole again...but you know you can't...you know it has become an impossibility...but never mind, as long as you don't insult those sons of bitches...as long as you keep your "dignified" posture, on four, looking for the pieces...while they shove another article under your nose telling you how oppressive, oppressed you are...
We were all gathered in the dark room, in one corner of the room, huddled, almost piled up on top of another...like corpses about to be collectively buried in some anonymous mass grave...there was a little candle burning, flickering, imperceptibly so...maybe the only warmth, for we were shivering...
Each round we'd think the time has come...the time has come with the walls shaking and the windows shattering...we stopped replacing them...we just used garbage bags and tape instead...maybe that was a symbol for what was to come later...tape your mouth, seal your lips while your life has become a pile of garbage...
I remember each one would give the other "instructions", if you so and so is still alive, he/she should not forget to do so and so...and with every round, we'd say our prayers all over again, asking forgiveness for our short lived lives, our failures and omissions, and remind one another of the will...if you are still alive, remember, promise you will remember... I suppose another way of reaching immortality in those deadly minutes that preceded and followed every round of Freedom...
At first there were sirens, and some would scream "ghara, ghara, here they come again" (air raid, air raid) as if we had a say in the matter, as if we could stop it, as if we controlled the sky or those who rode it...so we huddled again and again...like terrified animals before a storm, before an earthquake...
When the sirens stopped working, it was the brave ones who went to the mosques and start chanting Allahu Akbar - God is the Greatest...these became our sirens -- Allahu Akbar...
In the aftermath of each round of Freedom and Liberation, each would take a deep breath, and try to reach someone else, another relative, a neighbor, to check on them...
Rosaries - praying beads would be left on each one's seat, marking it as -- this is my place, this is where I was when it all happened...marking our territory with praying beads...half angels and half animals, surviving on prayer and instinct...awaiting death...
It's funny how it is all coming back, as if it was yesterday...it's like a closed locked door and I just turn in the key, open it and here it is all over again...
There are things I don't want to remember, but they impose themselves on me, imperiously so...and it's like one scene takes me to another one, like in a train ride...like a film I can't stop...like a film I am anxiously waiting for to end...
One scene leads to another, like in a labyrinth...no wonder this is a door I never wanted to open...
War after War after War...back in the tunnel, swirling back...subtracting years, 1991, the fireworks of another liberation. 1980, 1973, 1967...I remember them all...one by one...
What is there to say ? Apart from swinging from shivers to numbness back to shivers, back to nothing...
The same scene repeats itself...windows shattering, plastic and tapes, glued to the radio for the latest news, hoping batteries won't run out, and more sirens...all the sirens sound the same...Baghdad and beyond -- same sirens, same wars...
Israeli air raids in 1967 and 1973, I was there too...I laugh when I think about it, laugh sarcastically, as if Destiny wanted me to be a witness...
I remember another shelter...this one was very damp...it was in the basement of a building...not really a shelter but more like an underground storage room...it smelled bad...humidity and piss...I remember Dad grabbing the radio, and Mom pulling me by the arm - Yalla Layla, let's go...and I'd hear the thunder outside shaking the earth beneath my feet...and after so many rounds of "punishment" from the Sky, I'd say to my mother - do we really have to go to this dark room, can't we just die here in our home ?
I remember her just pulling me by the arm down the stairs -- no time for a reply, every minute counted...hurrying down the stairs whilst everything shook...and ending up in that dark humid, smelly room, smelling of rot and piss...there would be several families there...again each family would take a corner, gather and huddle together...waiting for the final verdict, waiting for the final sentence, waiting...to see if God, the Universe, MIG fighter jets...decide who will live and who will die that day...
And so it is in this part of the world, from 2010 to all the way back...their raids and bullets fly over your head taking you from up and their articles take you from down....and they still shove them under your nose telling you how oppressive - oppressed you are...
Well I did warn, I did say I am not sure how or when this will end...I knew when I turned that key into that locked door, I was opening a can of worms...
Needless to say I had much difficulty falling asleep, and when I eventually did, I was woken up every hour or so with terrible nightmares. I am not sure if nightmare is the correct word, more like very powerful dreams, one sequence after another, that left me drenched in cold sweat, gasping for air...
I could not fall asleep, even though I was dead tired...I kept tossing and turning and out of the blue images of my dying grandmother flashed before my eyes...I saw when uncle handed me her medical report, the first thing I read was - Prognosis Negative. It was too late to do anything. Not that there was much we could do in view of the circumstances...the family decided not to tell her how ill she was...but she knew...
I remember being by her side and holding her frail transparent hands, with the blue veins showing, all dried up...I said " Bibi, it will all be fine " - she smiled and said "I know why am so ill, it's the wars, they killed me...I kept the frights inside and now they are killing me..."
Do those who pride themselves on Liberation and Mission Accomplished ever think of how "frights kept inside" actually act like delayed time bombs and bullets? Do the Medical Associations of the "civilized" world, ever consider the long term effects, of such a "negative prognosis" ? I very much doubt it...I very much doubt that Bibi or the thousand others will ever cross their callous indifferent minds...
So against this background of specific memories, I finally managed to doze off, only to be shaken out of this much desired state by a potent sequence of a dream...
I dreamt it was pitch black all around me...I was in some airport tarmac, I had just landed and about to cross a border...I was carrying no luggage, there was no suitcase waiting for me...I only had a small plastic bag with essentials in it...
I saw my dad waiting for me on the other side of the fence...I had to go through customs but I had no papers, no documents...they checked and checked again the contents of my plastic bag, I was delayed...I told my dad, I will join them later on, I am being kept here for a while...
The second sequence was also very potent...I then saw myself in a gathering of men, Arab men from different nationalities...supposedly "supporters of the cause", they were just sitting drinking coffee and smoking...and theorizing...they were Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, for the most part...and at the same time they were trying to sell me things, goods, stuff that was worthless...I said to one of them, but I have already paid you so much, and I got nothing in return, why should I pay you more...you have given me nothing...so he retorted - come on you know how much we care about you, we even gave you a discount... I replied - a discount for what, you gave me nothing, I gave you everything I had... So one of the guys hugged me and said - you know we are brothers and I said - are we really ?....I left this gathering very upset, and headed to the empty street, again it was pitch black...again I was carrying nothing but this plastic bag...
The third sequence was the most telling....as I was walking down that dark street, a car pulls up on the curb, I noticed it had no lights, I felt danger...the man in the car said - have no fear I live here in this street...but he had an Egyptian accent and he was driving a car that had no Egyptian license plates...and in the dream I was not in Egypt...I knew he was lying and that I was in trouble...He got out of the car, he was a very big man, looked like a monster, he just put his hands on my mouth and he tried to rape me...I fought back as hard as I could, I wanted to scream, shout, but he suffocated my voice with his big hands, I had a small alarm in my hand, like a small siren, emitting the same sound when the bombs were about to fall...I sounded the siren, it was loud...I could hear it in the empty street, I was waiting for my "brothers" to show up -- no one did....
I woke up trembling...I felt so nauseous I wanted to vomit, but I had nothing in my stomach to vomit...I laid in bed for a while gathering my senses, reminding myself it was just a dream...only to realize that it was no dream, it was reality...
Iraq was betrayed and raped by the Arab "brothers" first..
An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...
Who am I ? The eternal Question . Have not figured it out fully yet . All you need to know about me is that I am a Middle Easterner, an Arab Woman - into my 40's and old enough to know better. I have no homeland per se. I live in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Egypt simultaneously...All the rest is icing on the cake.
