In memoriam of all those killed by US warplanes - RIP -Amen.



Foreign and Libyan victims 1986

Last year I posted about my experience of being bombed , "April is forever linked in my memory to terror [..] Have you ever been in a disaster area, just before something terrible is about to take place? If you have then you would know what I’m talking about, this sense of total silence, impending doom, emptiness inside and all your body hair standing up". See My night of terror for the whole details. "Those 12 flights of stairs seemed interminable to me that night, among the cries, screams .. these people have never even had a fire drill , let alone prepare for an air strike ! "

It seems I'm not the only one who is still affected by that memorable night. Here is an eloquent testimonial by Suhail Shafi, an Indian doctor who was born and partly -raised in Libya and currently working in Malta. His strategy was to repress the memory because he was so shocked as a child. When I read his rendering I realised that Suhail lived about 1km away from my home ! "I heard a girl's voice that betrayed a gasp of horror, and I remember the four of us - my parents, my sister and myself - running out into the dark corridor outside our flat. We were rushing down the stairs and I remember my little feet being pierced by pieces of glass that came from the windows which had been shattered by the blast of American missiles that had landed in the neighbourhood behind us." Check his essay I was there when the Americans bombed, courtesy of Shireen from red_enclave, who was probably also there at that time.

We were just terrified kids, there is nowhere to hide in Tripoli in case of an ai-raid ( very few building had basements), there was some kind of old bomb shelter from WWII that the Italian occupation used but it had been sealed we heard decades ago and no body knew the location of it's doors. So what is my point today? Well the smart bombs missed their targets in 1986 and they are still missing them in 2005 .


Here is a list of some of the countries the US has bombed since end of WWII, I've updated it a bit:
China 1945-46, Korea 1950-53, China 1950-53, Guatemala 1954, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959-60, Guatemala 1960, Belgian Congo 1964, Guatemala 1964, Dominican Republic 1965-66, Peru 1965, Laos 1964-73, Vietnam 1961-73, Cambodia 1969-70, Guatemala 1967-69, Lebanon 1982-84, Grenada 1983-84, , El Salvador 1981-92, Nicaragua 1981-90, Libya 1986, Iran 1987-88, Libya 1989, Panama 1989-90, Iraq 1991-2002, Kuwait 1991, Somalia 1992-94, Croatia 1994 (of Serbs at Krajina), Bosnia 1995, Iran 1998 (airliner) Sudan1998, Afghanistan 1998,Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001-2002, Iraq 2003-present.

I bet you many of us have forgotten why they were bombed?
Possible new targets are : Iran, Syria ....

The outward goals of this policy of bombing Libya were never realised, the almost sanitized way the US viewers have seen it on TV /media, does not record the destruction and the pain and the pent up feelings of helplessness.

President Reagan and aides watching live.


We do count, the dead have a name, all our dead are dear to us be they in Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan , Libya or all the others places I have not named..we are all non-combattants , and we make the bulk of the victims. Please stop massacring us. Let us find peaceful civilised solutions to your security issues, maybe we can help you with that? come to us with your concerns not with arrogance but in an ordinary way..maybe we have concerns of our own we wish to discuss? We know you have the might, but we have just the same right to live and die in peace, to live in harmony we both have to make those staggering steps towards each others. Pride has nothing to do with it, only survival of our humanity and our soul.

So it was a year ago since I wrote my earlier post, what do you think has changed, have we, you and I changed as human beings in our outlook? Do you have any ideas on how to prevent further killing?

I didn't have a comment section then, and I can't post all the emails I received, but this year , if any of you reading this have been in Libya in April 1986 , or know someone who was, or have been bombed and lived to tell the story share with us your feelings and experiences. I'm sure it will help us exorcise the memory.

After you read this, please observe a one minute silence and a prayer in tribute to all the innocent dead in the World. Amen.

Update on case 44/1999 : The Bulgarian medics


I recently wrote about the case of alleged/suspected HIV contamination of Libyan children by some foreign health workers in Libya. See here . Well while we are awaiting the trial and verdict by the Supreme Court in late May below is the latest on this affair.

Libya is to impose a trade and investment embargo on Bulgaria for what it calls Sofia's failure to take responsibility [...] "The boycott decision was also prompted by the Bulgarian government's campaign to tarnish Libya's image" .

If this is true, then it is an escalation, at least it shows that other countries can impose embargos as well and it may I hope prompt Bulgaria to finally get on and act and face up to the situation and stop lobbying here and there from the EU & US. If they are innocent, they will walk out, if they are not they will be punished, and if a political settlement is reached well that happens too, look at all the court cases in the West. The accused have in my opinion obtained the most due process in Libya ever. Why does not the UN order an investigation into this just like the Hariri bombing, don't Libyan kids count ? They are suffering and 40+ have died so far. It is not only devastated families, it is lost childhood, pain, loneliness and tragic death.

Jedi Quiz

Found this quiz over at Sandmonkey's blog( thanks ;) ), took it for laugh's, if you have time to waste and are curious to know what type of Jedi you are try it out .


:: how jedi are you? ::

R.I.P. John Paul II

First of all I would like to convey my deepest condolences to the Christian World in general and Catholics in particular. This post is not meant to be offensive but only to foster constructive comments if possible.

We Arabs love to talk politics and world events, and nowadays you can't help escaping that, so usually in a conversation with my friends and peers of all faiths and colours whatever their interests they know me so well now that we end up with a lecture on the Middle-East from me ( yes I bore them to death :) ) , and other issues.
So to get back to the story , we were comfortably sipping our cappucinos, teas and various hot or cold drinks when I was in London last time, and the Pope was brought into the discussion. My immediate input was that the Pope and Prince Rainier of Monaco were going to die soon and probably postpone Charles-Camilla wedding and I joked (I know.. I know poor taste) that they might feel that this would be a bad omen. Little did I know how imminent was his death and how almost true my prediction would come. However, the media had recently started to cover the Pope's increasing poor health ( more than usual and in addition to his Parkinsonism etc..) and his subsequent hospitalisation started to surface last month. Then following his brief appearances whereby he obviously looked unwell, that's when I realised he was probably dying. The confirmation of this came when the speakers from the Vatican started giving statements about his health which were not really enlightening. For me this meant he was dead and they were just ordering the house before informing the world. The Vatican is a very powerful organisation, but that is not the subject of this post.
Back in February when I read this piece of news , about the death of the last witness at Fatima it occured to me that she was the last one to protect the Pope's life on this earth. Kind of a thread, don't ask me why (metaphysical bullshit you may call it), that's what I felt then, because her visions of the Virgin Mary simulatneously with the two other children family members in 1917 allegedly being prophetic in nature and the third secret of Fatima was purported to refer to the Pope's assasinatin attempt in 1981. So when she died, the thread was broken.

Though we have been taught not to speak ill of the death, it would be unfair to say that Pope John Paull II was perfect, he was human after all and humans make mistake despite his mea culpas, the following criticsims are addressed at him, especially that of destroying thousands of lives to AIDS because of his views re. condoms being a sin.

Honestly I think Pope John Paul II had a lot of good ideas and made many excellent moves throughout his papacy especially his efforts to bridge religious divides, and apologies on several occasions. He was definetely charismatic, and his travels to the Middle-East and the land of the Bible will be remembered by all of us; check the tributes to the Pope here : "From God we come and to him we return. Even though I am a Muslim .." .
The Arab bloggers have also NOT been silent here are some links : The Damascene Blog, Speaker's Corner from whom I learned that there a total of seven popes from Syria (hat tip Dina) , Long nights of a lost knight , the Egyptian Eye (in French), Schlonkom Bakazay, and a long list of others , but you can follow the links on the these various Arab blogs and they would lead you not only to Iraqi blogs ( I know they are extremely popular), but also, to Tunisian, Moroccan, Sudanese, Syrian, Yemeni and lots more.
My favourite on the subject of todays post -which if you remember is the late John Paul II, is on a very interesting blog - discovered by chance whilst browsing MaGdee's blog ( I have plenty of free time on my hands it seems ;) ). Mohamed of From Cairo with Love, has given a space to Twosret , a dedicated commentator on many Arab/Egyptian blogs ( yes you want her on your side as Magdee once said), to voice her opinion and advice on Arab PR handling ( thanks for a brave article to both of them) . I won't tell you more go read it yourself!

In conclusion the Arab media has covered the Pontiff's funeral extensively even here in Libya where the only Chritians population consists of foreign guests and visitors. Whatever John Paul's legacy is, it was impossible not to shed a tear watching all those pilgrims in Rome during the past week to finally reach his resting abode at St. Peter's Crypt .

Case 44/1999: The story of the Bulgarian medics who spread AIDS in a children’s hospital in Libya

Back in 1998, while investigating an outbreak of AIDS at the El-Fateh Children’s hospital in Benghazi –Libya, nineteen Bulgarians […] along with foreign and local workers were detained for questioning. Most were later released except for five nurses and an anesthetist all from Bulgaria in addition to a Palestinian doctor who were arrested for allegedly intentionally giving HIV contaminated blood to approximately 400 Libyan kids. What the international news media failed to stress on is that eight Libyans have also been charged in conjunction with this case. The Bulgarians, Palestinian and the Libyans all went on trial on February 7th 2000, on charges of deliberately injecting the children with contaminated blood as part of an experiment. Their trial has been an on and off thing since then. The Libyan prosecutors had demanded the death penalty.
I’m not going to discuss the Libyan health workers here because there was no outcry in the international community about their fate, and they have been out on bail since 2001. So they will be brought in the story when and if relevant.

But the case was thrown out of the Special Court in 2002 for lack of evidence to a security undermining threat, and the defendants were referred to a criminal court. Moreover, Professor Montagnier (The French doctor who first isolated the HIV virus) and Italian Aids scholar Vittorio Collizzi have studied the case, following a Bulgarian request for an independent international assessment. So Prof Montaignier was - to be fair to the Libyan courts - allowed to present his report in which he concluded that the AIDS outbreak was due most probably to negligence &/or bad hospital conditions.

On 6th May 2004, the court sentenced the anesthetist to four years in prison and he was going to be extradited to Bulgaria, but he currently still is serving his sentence at the Bulgarian embassy in Tripoli. The Libyan medics were acquitted, while the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death by firing squad. It must be noted that two of the nurses say that their confessions have been obtained under torture, but at the same time HIV infected plasma bags were allegedly found in their compounds. Anyway the alleged torturers are also to be tried .

The problem is the following there has been TOO much lobbying going on from the Bulgarian president and authorities and famous personalities and anyone who thinks he/she can gain from this exposure. Other lobbyist were from the EU, from Human Rights activists, the UN and even from President Bush which has politicized the case too much, tying their release with good relationship with Libya and even open blackmail by the West.

Since 1998, 47 of the children have died, that’s about 9% of the total infected. The Palestinian doctor has received a honourary Bulgarian citizenship and he and the nurses are appealing the death sentence. The case has been taken to the Supreme Court now and we shall see what happens. A compromise could have been reached if Bulgaria had agreed to compensate the Libyan families, and the EU had agreed to help in the treatment of the surviving kids (but the EU price tag was their release). And Bulgaria has refused as this is an election year and they don’t want to be seen to accept responsibility.

Because of all its lobbying and political pressure Bulgaria has managed to make a big political issue about a malpractice crime and may have alienated many people in Libya who would have otherwise been more sympathetic . The point I’m trying to make is that all these lobbyist and would be interceding people are not saying there has been mistrial or that the Libyan court is unfair and we have to bring them to justice again. I can accept that. No they are asking simply to have the Bulgarians released, presumably innocent and we will forget what happened. But hey wait a minute that’s not how things work! If Bulgarian authorities arrest a Libyan criminal, they will not release him/her just like this; they will try him/her in court and try to prove his guilt/innocence. I’m not good on international law but that is basically it , maybe if there are some other rules the Libyan may be extradited home to serve the remaining sentence years later , just like the Turkish guy who attempted to kill the late Pope , he served 20 years in Italy then was sent home to serve the rest of his sentence. Nope this is not what the Bulgarians and the rest of the Western world it seems want, what they want is simply for Libya to let the nurses go because this would be in its interest, it will open trade doors it will prove its respectability in their eyes, it will improve its Human rights record WOW is that it. That is what I call horse-trading. Everybody assumes that they are innocent, I don’t know if they are or not but I don’t like this attitude if it was a Pakistani nurse in Britain nobody would have moved an inch for her. What if the Bulgarians were not innocent? Let the court decide and stop interfering, try and help the court as much as possible and stop making it as if their lives were more valuable than others.

The Libyans see that the Western world only cares about these Bulgarian nurses and not about the fate of the Libyan kids (even the NY times noticed this) - after all until proven innocent they are still criminals or at least guilty of negligence or malpractice and that is a possibility even the Bulgarian authorities have acknowledged (negligence). The point is that even with negligence you can’t say ‘sorry I won’t do this again, I made a mistake!’ . This is not a wrong diagnosis or even a wrongly amputated leg, this is AIDS for which as far as I know there is NO CURE or vaccine yet, in addition to it being a very stigmatizing disease in any country- let alone in a Muslim country which lives by traditional ways. The only thing which is not ostracizing these victims (more than usual) is the fact that they are innocent children who could not have contracted this disease by the usual high profile ‘disgusting’ ( sorry no offense to anyone intended) means. But can you imagine their life, how will it be? They will eventually die in pain, because of lack of knowledge they won’t be able to play with other children normally for fear of being contagious, what about when they become teenagers? They will never be able to taste those first love pangs and no one will certainly wish to be married to them, first because of fear of contracting the disease even by practicing safe sex and second because when starting a family in Libya it means you want children of your own which would be impossible due to the high risk of virus transfer from mother to child. No body has thought about these children and their psychological wellbeing (let alone health) where is the UN, the EU, Bush or Amnesty International?

The international community has only focused on saving 5 European nurses who may be languishing in a Libyan prison. these prisoners get Christmas presents and family visits, they enjoy better conditions than the Libyan inmates and had a block specially built for them wow ! to which they were recently transferred , and I read somewhere but can't find the link anymore that they asked for air-conditioners because they could not stand the heat ! Hello this is a prison not a 5 star hotel and they still complain it’s cramped.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that in Libya we have thousands of foreign guest workers in the health sector for whom I am grateful as they make up the deficit. These foreigners are mainly Bulgarian and ex-Yugoslavian and from other Balkan states in addition to Philippinos and some Indians and Pakistanis. They enjoy an enormously better salary than the locals especially that it is in foreign currency and when US$ prices were high these people lived like czars in Libya. Whilst I’m sure many of them honoured their contracts I can tell you from personal experience that some of them could not care less, and even the fact that US sanctions resulted in the deterioration of Libyan hospitals and that probably some Libyan health workers were also unscrupulous does not give the right to foreign workers to treat the Libyan patients like 'shit'. I’ve seen it as some of them ruled unconditionally in the hospitals and clinics, and you don’t want to be on their bad side as they may not treat you or worse may give you the wrong treatment. So again I wanted to say that not all of them were angels and saviours. Whilst I don’t want to believe that the Bulgarians could have deliberately given AIDS to Libyan kids, because I’ve seen the state of the hospitals in those days (thanks to laissez faire and sanctions) , I will never feel comfortable again in the presence of a Bulgarian health worker because I may think that he/she will try to harm us for their sake ( a bit far fetched but plausible).

At one time last year in the mist of all the lobbying frenzy, I wished that the death sentence had been carried swiftly when the case was obscure and before it got all this mediatisation. Problem solved. Now I fear that even if they are guilty they will be found innocent to gain political points, and the real story is lost somewhere. I hope they are found innocent for their families' sake as soon as possible and because I’m fed up of this case, but whatever happens to them will not make a difference to the Libyan children.



Bulgarian and Palestinian medics


Libyan child


Libyan AIDS victims protesting.

For chronology of events read this Bulgarian site .

Inmates not satisfied with prison conditions read through September 2004 all the hoopla below are snippets :

-Bulgaria's authorities are trying to speed up the transfer of the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya from the Judeyda prison to a special building built for them.

-Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs G. Grancharova stated in Varna that the efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure better living conditions for the Bulgarian medics.

-nurses sentenced to death in Libya have been moved to a special facility in their prison, the Trud newspaper reported Thursday. The paper said a new apartment block had been built in the prison yard and that the nurses had been moved into it...

-The five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya are not satisfied with the conditions in the new building in which they had been transferred from Judeida prison. They claim the place was narrow and that there were Libyan women in the next-door room.

Highlander in the British countryside & at Buckingham palace

Last Friday I decided to take up a friend’s invitation and visit their family in the English countryside for an Easter experience. I must say it was very enjoyable as the weather was warm and sunny for a few days and yours truly had wonderful walks and fresh air galore. Witness these grubby boots


What could be more fun than great company, delicious food, gorgeous weather, and exciting conversation with old friends and interesting ones with their kids? My favourite part of the whole trip was guess what? Watching the Harry Potter DVDs with the kids. That was awesome, as funnily enough I never had time for that before; now I’m a Potter fan, and can hardly wait for the next release. It got colder by Sunday but hey, we had all the Easter chocolate eggs to eat and it was nice to watch the kids searching for their eggs in the garden and the house. Running around with the huge family dog and the bunny pets was an absolutely invigorating time plus a chance to shed a few of the pounds acquired with all those chocolates. Isn't that pastoral scene enchanting ?


By Tuesday I was in London, I took this opportunity to brush up on my tourism. On top of my list was the British Museum, I only managed to visit half of it in one day.


Of course we begun our trip with the Egyptian section (yes the mummies). Since we went there with no plans and no idea what to do it was an adventure to just stroll from room to room with no specific chronology. My favourite objects were the gold chunky jewelry and especially the Celtic and near- east ones. Both reminded me so much of Libyan traditional jewelry. I think I’ll visit the second half another time. I spent a lot of time in the city, and have fallen in love with London, probably because I have not seen its seedier places but hey who needs to see that? I’ll just enjoy the good stuff, so I finally got to see Buckingham Palace,


the House of Parliament, Saint James Park, 10 downing street (was hoping for a glimpse of Tony Blair),Big Ben & Westminster Abbey where many people were praying for the Pope.



I walked from there to London Eye and the Aquarium and we had waffles with chocolate at a cute little stall.

And kept walking on Queensway till the Millenium Bridge, ok by then I was dead tired as we’d been on our feet for 6 hours and still had to walk back home. I’ve decided to take London in small portions whenever I happen to visit here. Interestingly while I was there, I passed by Zimbabwe House yesterday and was able to capture these pre-election activists.


Also I enjoyed these protest placards opposite the House of Parliament.

My favourite being this one :)NO COMMENT


But the following is my masterpiece I think I may even get a prize for thise photo shoot don't you think ? I loved it..



This was my ‘fun’ week in brief. I’m rested, my mind is clearer and hopefuly ready to post about more serious stuff, next stop will be the Bulgarian nurses case. Keep tuned.
PS note to Alan ;) yes eventually I’ll come to Scotland too !

Fun stories ?

The detox is over, I can tell you it was difficult not to be tempted and blog or check email, the inbox is overflowing. It was an interesting longish weekend full of surprises . But that is not for publishing. On the other hand I discovered that someone is so keen to understand my ramblings that they went to the trouble of translating some posts- yes yes - ( nodding my head up and down) check it out here 'from the rock' in Spanish De la roca sounds already nicer ;) . I'm honestly flattered thank you unknown reader. I was contemplating stopping the blog but when I saw this I thought that maybe it was still worth it to blog, plus Robert of Wired Temples has also argued against it hmm , maybe I should set up a vote ?
Anyway today I would like to remember Salampax who had inspired me, Raed who got really excited about the idea of a Libyan blog , Zeyad from Healing Iraq who convinced me to go public with his skillful persuasion and actually launched my site around this time last year( thanks Zeyad may you always be safe)- by the way he's blogging again everybody ! And last but not least is Iraqi Spirit who kept encouraging me despite my frustrations ( my thoughts are with you ). There is one more person in the shadows, he knows who he is :) , I salute you my friend : do you think your 'little student' is growing up finally ?( you can answer by email ).

While I'm at it I'm glad to note that I found some more blogs from Libya , yippee , Alea, teaches English in Tripoli and has set up a blog for her students to interact in, go check the level of English of these students, wow I'm impressed, these will all be potential bloggers ;) . It's fun, with photos of Libya, of the Yathreb school , of Alea and her class, read their homework etc.. now if only our non-Arab friends could learn to write and speak Arabic just as quickly and as good as these Libyan kids...(sigh). Another teacher is blogging bilingually here at permanent movement watch and read her diary and see her kids and other Libyan kids & their friends just in ordinary normal life to get the feel of Libya . Salah El Din at Unfettered Swallows is a student in Oklahoma, his blog is artistic and metaphysical and he's got some lovely photos from his trip to Japan as well. A big welcome to the blogosphere to all of them. I'll keep on adding more when I stumble on them.

Now for a little bit of pimpin' as Magdee from Rosetta Stones would say, Jonathan at The Heed Heeb thinks I'm 'intriguing' & remind him of Salampax , thanks Jonathan, because folks he has a great versatile blog. He is interested in Africa, in the Middle-East in America, and in Israel of course since he's Jewish. His blog is packed with information as Jonathan is obviously well cultured and has an analytical mind;)

Update: I would like to apologise to my NUMBER ONE fan Alan Kennedy who should have been in this list as he has never failed to make a graceful comment on this blog . SORRY :( and who when he does not comment I feel disapointed . Alan is a fellow blogger from Scotland,if I'm correct he is also a science graduate. Through reading his posts you can find his wide interests, which always have a humanitarian angle, but most of all I think he wants to know about the Middle-East because he participates on most of the bloggers forum. Alan is also learning/or speaks Spanish. So ladies and gentlemen
I give you AK Land :)

Update Two 25/3/05: HAPPY EASTER to ALL of you !

Spring is in the air: the first daisies ?



I'm taking a few days detox from internet and blogging, I'll meet some friends and be a real person again ;) not just a virtual Highlander. Please feel free to comment and discuss about your addiction or non addiction to internet or any other subject or even prepare something you've always meant to ask me. Maybe after this little break I'll be more refreshed to tackle your questions. Have a wonderful time!
signing off Highlander

Replies to your comments

Whilst browsing through the archive I noticed that some readers have left comments months after I've posted. Well I hadn't realised this and so I tried to answer most of you today. Please go to your relevant comment and check my reply. Thank you for your visit. :)

UPDATE 15/3/05

Sandmonkey is putting down his foot ;) regarding comments section,. That was a nice rant; made a lot of sense. I'm replying here because I can't access your comments section either, Blogger is doing crazy things again! So just to clarify a few points I am Libyan ( told you that many times on your blog ;) - & yes like you I LOVE Lebanon also, basically we agree on many points.

More Libyan and Libya related blogs!

Khadija is an American married to a Libyan guy! You will definetely enjoy her humourous take on the Libyan society. Libya's population is so small that I have probably run into her on many occasions . Khadija has been blogging since September.You can see her views on plumbimg in Libya , the adventure with the kids and cat and hubby...some great photos of her travelling around the country etc..: "Mustafa went out to find the perfect sheep for Eid. Eid is gonna be on Thursday, and we've been getting ready. They always jack the prices of the sheep up this time of year 'cause they know you've got to buy one. So Mustafa's been grumbling about things (he'll never admit to be grumbling about the sheep - just takes it out in other ways)."

Tripoli Girl , is a Libyan teenager, she's Khadijja's daughter, go cheer her on and help her improve her English ( as her mum wishes) , though I think her English sounds very good to me, welcome Tripoli Girl you're our future.


Shireen is a Malaysian girl who lived in Libya in the 80's , she can never forget it and her one obsession is going back for a visit as soon as possible... I give you The Gurlie...you can ask her about her thoughts on Libya too I'm sure she would love to share...plus she's a football fan or at least she loves a football player..:)


At Discarded Lies [ who has cool blog ] I came accross this article by Peter Wilkinson of the New York Times who travelled to Libya a few months ago ....Here are excerpts or just click on the link for the whole report.

''TRIPOLI?'' said the British Airways agent at Heathrow Airport near London, searching my passport for the hard-to-obtain visa. ''God help you.''
It's difficult to think of a place, in our 21st century, left to pioneer. For Americans, right now, that would be Libya, a complicated and confounding land on the North African coast, opened in February after 23 years of a travel ban tighter than Cuba's.

As we toured Tripoli's medina, a brief walk from the hotel, I was struck by how refreshingly tranquil it was. This was not your typical Middle Eastern souk, a riotous, rattling, sputtering engine of commerce and emotion. A few children set off firecrackers in the street. Cascades of sparks poured from a metalworking shop, where men smoked silently from hookahs. But there were no hordes to elbow, no hard sell, no streams of beggars, as there are in Cairo.
''I've traveled all over the world and I've never been so frustrated or had such an excruciating planning process for a trip,'' said Alexandra Watkins, a copywriter from San Francisco. Nonetheless, she is among the hundreds of Americans who are signing up for group tours to Libya.


Looks like Peter had fun, unlike Michael J. Totten about whom Khadijja says : " The pictures on his blog are interesting, but beware! He's a bit negative and not so accurate in his facts about Libya. God alone knows what kind of tour guide this guy had!"

'Trigger happy ' in Baghdad, one too many..

Intriguing Questions 6 March 2005 ( from Arabnews website)

Was the killing by US troops of an Italian security chief and the wounding of the Italian journalist he had helped release hours earlier an unfortunate tragedy? Or was it something more sinister? Either way, Washington has some tough questions to answer. American military sources in Baghdad maintain that the car carrying journalist Giuliana Sgrena and three Italian intelligence officials, including the slain officer, failed to react to repeated instructions to stop at a roadblock just outside the capital’s airport. It seems extraordinary that Italian intelligence professionals who had just rescued the journalist would have been insensitive to the requirements of a security check and the risks of ignoring it.
One possible explanation for the attack on the car carrying the Italians is that trigger-happy US troops, terrified of car bombers, fired the minute they suspected the vehicle was a danger to them. It only takes one nervous soldier to shoot a single bullet and a whole unit then shares the panic and opens up on a target. If this is what happened, then it is a demonstration of the indiscipline and poor training of US soldiers which has in the past resulted in a number of similar attacks, including the slaying of the Iraqi occupants of a car rushing a pregnant woman to a maternity hospital.
The odiously named “friendly fire” has characterized the US military performance in Iraq to the fury of Washington’s allies, not least the British whose troops have discovered that however “friendly,” it can prove as deadly as the unfriendly variety.
There is, however, the more sinister explanation which is that the Americans wanted Sgrena dead. A senior correspondent for the Communist daily, Il Manifesto in Rome, the journalist has been no friend of the US invasion and occupation. US troops have killed journalists before. Two cameramen, a Ukrainian and a Spaniard, were slain in April 2003 when a US shell was fired into the Palestine Hotel, a known base of international journalists opposite the Baghdad Sheraton. Earlier an Al-Jazeera correspondent was killed when the TV station’s local office was struck by a US missile.
The American military has not taken kindly to foreign journalists who refuse to involve themselves in America’s well-oiled media-relations machine. When Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb. 4, other journalists were told by US officials that the event highlighted the danger of working outside their Green Zone-focused loop. There was also apparently grim satisfaction that a journalist who was so opposed to US policy should have become a victim of the insurgents. The conclusion of the sinister explanation must therefore be that the Americans were settling the score with a foreign commentator whose published views infuriated them. Yet it seems incredible that even the American military could be this crass.
In Italy, the incident is provoking a renewed outcry against further Italian involvement in Iraq. An anguished Berlusconi reportedly made an extremely angry phone call to President Bush and was promised that that incident would be fully investigated. The journalists group Reporters Sans Frontiers is demanding, however, that an independent inquiry be mounted by the UN since the group fears that, as with the Palestine Hotel deaths, the US will again exonerate its trigger-happy troops.


Any ideas on that or is it really just an accident?

'Islamic culture: An easy scapegoat'

I permitted myself to post the whole article by Soumayya Ghannoushi who is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London; in the hope that you will read it to the end. This is what many people from that area [Middle East] think (not neccessarily my opinion), to reach them and show them the sincerety of the West and Bush's plans in meddling in their affairs you may have to consider a 'different' approach then villifying their religion, humiliating them at every turn and destroying their homeland by continuous interventions.; so that eventually they can turn to their own projects of reformation and democratisation with all that it entitles.
Ok enough blabbering here is the article .

"Ever since the monumental day of 11 September 2001, the world has been inundated by stale cliches and dim-witted myths, poorly disguised as honest academic research and free, objective journalism.
In this great hyperbole, the world appears broken into two opposite trenches: a sphere of freedom, morality and civility, confronted by its antithesis: an enslaved barbaric realm that encapsulates all that "we" are not.
The far-stretching lands of Islam loom largely in this bleak uncivilised sphere. If the modern West is dynamic, the world of Islam is stagnant. If it is governed democratically and honours self-ownership, Islam is plagued by a despotism that crushes the individual altogether out of existence. If it is rigorously rational, the world of Islam is the embodiment of raving instincts and wild emotionalism.
This discourse, which derives its roots from the tradition of Orientalism responsible for rearticulating and institutionalising the enormous arsenal of mediaeval Christian terms, narratives, images and myths about Islam and its world, had been severely undermined by the waves of Third World national liberation movements and the ever-growing tradition of post-colonial studies which question the essentialism and readymade models asserting the uniqueness and cultural purity of the West as opposed to the East's backwardness and stagnation.

With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith.
What had 30 years ago been cause for embarrassment and disrepute, was once again restored to normality, even respectability. Muslims thus found themselves the object of incessant condemnation and vilification.
When it comes to the subject of Islam and Muslims, even the most elementary requirements of responsible objective scientific research could be dispensed withWhile not even the weak, marginalised Muslim minorities in the West were spared, the world powers that reign over the destiny of the Middle East and the greater part of the Muslim hemisphere assumed the role of the innocent victim of "Islamic aggression", who bore no responsibility whatever for the tragic crises of the region, from war, chaos and occupation to economic backwardness and political despotism.
Even those of little if any knowledge of Islam and its intensely complex historical condition, movements and traditions now entered the unrestricted open market of Islam.
When it comes to the subject of Islam and Muslims, even the most elementary requirements of responsible objective scientific research could be dispensed with.
We have thus become used to seeing parts of Quranic verses extricated from their contexts and combined with other fragments to distort the general meaning, to hearing Quranic verses confused with sayings of the prophet and talk of otherworldly punishment and reward represented as rules determining treatment of non-believers in this world.
And daily we bear witness to the hideous spectacle of ignorance, arrogance and prejudice parading freely across the larger part of the countless analyses, columns and articles on Islam and its world that stretch across pages and pages of newspapers, glossy magazines and academic reviews.

The 19th century European travellers' distant detached observations of the strange ways of the Muslim other, the Christian missionary, colonial administrator and military generals' representations of the remote world of Islam, are now replaced by ones by journalists, Islamologists and so-called experts.
The distorted and confused conception of the Islamic faith and historical experience these hold finds its roots in three elements essentially. First, a recycled Christian memory of Islam that remained active even in the era of secularisation.
The mediaeval Christian view of Islam as a deviant heretical creed continues to survive within a "secularised" framework. For although Christian theology has lost the vanguard role it had enjoyed during the Middle Ages, its content has been largely stripped of its transcendental character and rearticulated within a modern essentialist philosophy.
Secondly, the shift in the balance of power in favour of the modern west and emergence of an international order that gave the upper hand to the European powers over the rest of the globe, mainly in the south Mediterranean hemisphere. And, finally, the deep crises and high level of political disintegration that accompanied the accelerated decline of the Ottoman Empire and, since the beginning of the 19th century, came to characterise the whole Muslim world.
These three interconnected factors gave the modern west leave to silence Islam's voice and impose itself as the unique power of logos, of understanding, revealing, categorising and modulating Islam and its societies.

Since culture is an easy target, readymade postulates and categories are constantly invoked to explain all the ills plaguing the Muslim world. And it is precisely through this gate that thinkers with little acquaintance with Islam have engaged in a polemical discourse on Islam overwhelmed with superficiality, generalisation and distortion.
But beyond the superficial cultural explanations behind which hide western elites and decision makers, how can we make sense of the crises that dominate the scene in the Muslim world in general and the Arab region in particular? Could we dissociate the current condition of this sensitive part of the globe from its active near past, from the colonial policies and foreign interventions that still dictate much of its fate?
Could we separate the region's situation from the mammoth structure of a world order governed by great powers headed by the American giant, which reign over the destinies of the people of the Middle East?
If we are to gain insight into the grave phenomena emerging in the Islamic world, we must begin by freeing ourselves of the blind, naive essentialism characteristic of a great many analyses of the problem, which seek theological explanations for highly complex historical phenomena.
The intensely intricate nature of the Islamic socio-political situation marked by striking contradictions and strong tensions is better understood when viewed within the context of the waves of Western imperialist expansion, of the crises of the post-colonial state and the reality of social deprivation, economic dependence and decadent educational systems unable to fill the vacuum generated by the erosion of traditional learning centres, along with the marginalisation of the Muslim masses from the political system.

The situation is further complicated by American foreign policies in the Middle East, its backing of Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land and shameful military occupation of Iraq, which according to the most modest estimate available, has resulted in the deaths of over one hundred thousand Iraqis and wrought havoc in the country's infrastructure.
The countless innocent Iraqi lives it wrecks and the enormous American resources it devours (a colossal $240 million) are in the eyes of the architects of this latest of America's colonial ventures, justified by the underlying aim: imposing military dominance over this country, thereby laying hands over its enormous oil fields and subduing the entire strategic Arab region to American hegemony fully.
Only the terminally naive and politically blind may, indeed, be duped by the heroic rhetoric of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq and the region. If anything, the US is widely regarded by the majority in the Middle East as a crucial obstacle in their struggle for freedom from oppression.
It is interesting that the most despotic states in the Middle East region are those who have the closest ties with the US and its Western allies. One, indeed, may legitimately ask if such totalitarianism is the product of Islam, or whether it is the creation of Western policies themselves.

It is to the West's hegemonic self-engrossed policies and bleak historical record in the region that we should turn if we are to understand the causes of the great turmoil shaking Muslim societies to their very depths.
Indeed, much to the horror of the journalists and intellectuals acting as the "enlightened missionaries" of new colonialism, it is America's statesmen, generals and moneymen that hold the key to our search for the origins of "Islamic" fanaticism and extremism, not the texts of the Quran or the tradition of Islam's Prophet as they never tire of repeating.
And even if we chose to accept Bush and Blair's rhetoric that places the "enlightened free world" above and in opposition to the rest of humanity staggering under the weight of fanaticism and extremism and if we were to see bin Laden and al-Zarqawi as the natural product of an Islamic culture in need of remoulding through educational reforms, we would still be faced with the following question:
What of the expressions of fanaticism in the Western "free" world itself? Where are we to classify yesterday's brutal totalitarianisms of the likes of Nazism, fascism and Stalinism and today's ascending extreme political right?

Could Le Pen of France, Jorg Haider of Austria or the deceased Dutch rightwing politician Pim Fortuyn be described as by products of the mighty western modernity and its sublime cultural values?
If that is the case, then a process of cultural reform would seem to be even more urgently needed in the west, since unlike the elements emerging from the shadowy impoverished and powerless Muslim world, these rising forces have at the service of their fanaticism, once in power, a staggeringly potent military machine that threatens to bring death and destruction to much of the globe.
Once more, the keys to world peace and stability it seems are in the hands of the "enlightened free world", not in the realm of darkness and decadence that stretches across the rest of the globe; in Washington and London not in Baghdad and Gaza."

Tel Aviv blast

Whilst I deplore the tragic death of the nightclub revelers I can't help but think who would benefit from this latest blast. I had to read the whole article so please do so as well and see if we come to the same conclusion. If not please correct me or convince me otherwise, I am sincerely open to suggestions, because this bombing does not make sense.

Here is a sample: 'Israel has already announced it is freezing plans to hand over control of five West Bank towns to Palestinian security forces, which had been promised after the 8 February summit in Egypt. '

My armchair analysis: even though the suicide bomber was Palestinian, I would not put it past the Israelis, 2 birds for one stone, always look who gains most. They gain, by continuing to blame Syria and preparing the audience for a retaliatory air raid and by changing their mind about pulling out of West Bank which is unpopular with settlers and also they can keep saying 'oh we want peace but it's the Arabs who don't'. Sounds far fetched? No that's how dealings in the ME are - no direct line , that would be too easy.

Essential reading on Syria

Please read on ....

But, apart from these red lines, its interest is to befriend Lebanon, not to bully it. President Bashar Assad is facing as grave a crisis in Lebanon as the ones his father, the late President Hafiz Assad, dealt with successfully in 1976, when Syria first marched into Lebanon to protect the Christians, and in 1982, when Israel invaded the country.

Footsteps in the snow



I've been exposed to one of the coldest weeks in the UK this winter (which means I'm in the UK now for those who are interested), so the photo above is my contribution to this lot here. I will make the most of it as this is not a familiar site in Libya ( though it does exeptionally snow in Libya sometimes). Yippee ...signing off to go and walk in this fairytale world.

Of life in Syria

I had drafted this memo on August 25th 2004 as part of my travel series and always meant to post it , well maybe now is the right time to do so. Some news maybe outdated, but I don't feel like editing. Here I go, I look forward to your impressions.

I have found the Syrians to be resourceful people, I don’t think the US sanctions are a good idea as it does not really affect their life directly only makes it harder to purchase some very specific items and also it antagonizes the ordinary populace which cannot grasp what is it they are punished for.

For as long as I know Syria had been under some kind of sanction or the other, either self imposed or imposed by outside forces. This has thought the Syrian people to rely on themselves. You should see the cars that run in the streets ,some dating back to the 30’s..instead of being relegated to the museums they are actually functioning excellently and to this day being sold at exorbitant prices. I was happy to notice that lately car import has started to be permitted but 700 000 SL ( 1$= 50 SL) for a tiny Daewoo is just too much and unaffordable by the average employee whose basic salary is approximately 100 – 125 US$. YES believe it or not and he/she has to raise a family on that! Thank God Syria does not need to import food products otherwise people would starve.

The Syrians love life and you will see them in restaurants cafes, gardens, nightclubs, beaches, picnic areas, markets, family gatherings and everywhere in public places …
You will find all the dress styles, from the traditional clothes, the hyper western stuff or even very conservative dress….

The Syrians still like to store food supplies as in old times when there were no refrigerators; this is an annual ritual where seasonal fruits or vegetables are processed in a special manner to be kept for a long time. They make delicious jams and marmalade, homemade cheese, tomato paste, dried aubergines and wine leaves, lemon juice etc… all ready to be used when needed.

The negative part is the rampant corruption of many civil servants, I understand they do this to increase their ridiculous wages but it does not reflect well on the country image and makes way for abuses of people’s rights, although I did notice lately that there was a hotline to which you could report any officer or civil servant suspected of bribery .

As I said, Syria is very hospitable to its Arab brothers and the living proof of this is the thousands of Iraqis which have flocked to it this summer and which have actually caused a rise in the property market prices by buying and renting houses and offices there. Iraqis have become a familiar site in hundreds of public places there.

The other people who were made most welcome are the Palestinian refugees since 1948.
They first arrived and were installed in camps but these camps are nowadays actual cities and buildings and schools etc.. Palestinians in Syria have been treated just like any Syrian, they go to their schools, they are employed in the civil services or elsewhere and the same rules apply to them. In fact they may fare better than the Syrians because they also get special help from the UN, in education, allocation of extra food etc…They are even granted Syrian passports and ID and are allowed to own property in Syria. The only difference is that on their passport it is written Syrian- Palestinian so that their nationality is not lost forever and to guarantee their right of return if they want to the Palestinian (otherwise known as Israel) homeland either when it becomes independent or when the Israeli-Palestinians conflict is resolved. I think that this is a very fair deal because they have lived in Syria since 1948, also they are not allowed their own militias, police or arms or whatever like in Lebanon not to threaten the sovereignty of Syria. And frankly I think that is fine as well, as they should not have that in Syria - their host country- not to repeat the disastrous Lebanon situation of having a state within a state. We all remember ( I hope) how that ended and how precarious is now the Palestinian’s fate in the Lebanese refugee camps. Lebanon does not grant Palestinians the Lebanese nationality by the way!

While I was in Syria and Jordan I met some people who actually witnessed the fall of Baghdad, and the battle of the ex- Sadam airport. I hope that one day sooner rather than later many truths will see the light just like the atrocities in Abu Ghraib came out….What I would like to say is that we are not aware of the whole picture really and neither is the media, that's why the internet and blogs is so good.

The feeling of the Syrians towards the war on Iraq and its occupation? They are delighted that Saddam is gone, but like the rest of us they wish to see the back of the US army ASAP. The ordinary person is very much aware that America’s reasons were not altruistic, he/she is powerless to do anything about it at the moment, but threatening Syria( or Iran for that matter) is not a good idea either because it does not send the right message to the man on the street , it just makes it more obvious that America does not really care about bringing democracy to the Middle-East, as it states , nor about liberating the people there but only about itself and its safety and economy. This may not be what I think, but this is what it looks like to the masses. The war has brought them less safety because of the border with Iraq through which all kinds of persona non-grata are smuggled, in addition to unwanted goods and which the supposedly American occupying forces who were manning it during the war and after it couldn’t care less what was going on. I’m sorry to shock you people but some of your soldiers and officers took as low as 20$ bills to look the other way. I don’t really blame them, they have to survive in hostile territory so why even care about a country or people which are not their own. Plus many of these people are not so well off that’s why they signed up for the army didn’t they? So honestly I don’t have a grudge towards them, this is war. In fact I would like to thank whatever patrol was there in the winter of 2003 and who was compassionate enough to give a bag of ice to be used to lower the temperature of a baby who has a special place in my heart stranded in the Iraqi-Syrian no-man’s land. Thank you guys, you probably saved his life!

When I arrived in Syria it was end of school time. One thing I noticed was that the school uniforms had changed, from the khaki green used for girls and boys since secondary school for everybody, to grey and peacock blue suits . Blue for 7th-9th grade, and grey 10-12th grade. The going joke was that the state had a surplus of this material in it’s textile factories and wanted to sell it, but the true reason ( the going local rumour ) was that when Colin Powell visited Syria in 2003 he made a remark to the effect that 'was all the population of Syrian youths in the army?', to which he got the reply that 'no the school uniforms where standard khaki military green'. Immediately after his visit all the school uniforms were changed. Though this may not be true and I think it is hilarious but this is the attitude I hate, the servility WHY? Who cares ? America will not bomb the Syrians just because the schoolchildren wear combat greens would it ? I mean all teenagers around the world love to wear surplus army clothes, camouflage trousers and skirts and T-Shirts and they think its super fashionable. Needless to say that this change has added a strain on the pockets of the average citizen and the students are not happy because the guys think they look sissy and the girls like the gas cylinders which are the exact same blue in Syria ….

Nightmare prophecy realised? I hope not

A few days ago I voiced concern at my recurrent nightmare...I was horrified this morning to wake up to the news of the massive explosion in Beirut, which injured hundreds (photos here) and killed Rafiq Hariri ( ex - PM) among others . I am just hoping this is the end of the story..Folks whenever I have this dream horrible things happen. I certainly don't want another civil war in Lebanon, nor a war in Syria because people have started to point accusatory fingers there ( see the comments here). I am very very angry at this and hope the culprits are found because I cannot see a clear reason yet for what happened today. This is not the work of your usual terrorist. I sincerely hope that the nightmare ends here. Rest in Peace Hariri and all the others who died today and have not been named , may God bring patience and healing to their families.

Rating attractiveness

Interesting I was reading this article on the BBC Men with feminine faces will be luckier in love as most women are attracted to them rather than masculine men, Liverpool University scientists say . This guy may have a point I admit.
Now my idea of a purely physical attractive man are these two specimens below. I am not talking about other factors which can influence a girl's choice like intelligence, wit, education, culture , love etc...so don't bash me ok ;) I wonder what these choices say about me? lost between the East & the West, can you notice any similarities or is it all the fault of Valentine's Day ?

Islamic mythical hero



Brad Pitt in Troy

Charles Camilla : perfectly tuned body language ..shows they've been in love for so long. My opinion, he should never have married Diana in the firstplace.
Highlander

Welcoming the Year of the Rooster AND the 1426 Hejira (Islamic Calendar)

Yesterday, I was spoiled for choice of goodies, somehow the Chinese New Year and the Islamic Calendar have coincided and we have two simultaneous causes for celebrations, so happy new year to all my Chinese friends out there and Kul Sana wa entom tayebin to all the Muslim ones and vice versa. Today is the 1st of Muharram in the Islamic calendar, the first day of the year 1426, calculated since the Prophet Mohammed emigrated to Medina. The celebration/ commemoration of Ashura (depending on where you live) will be on the 10th of Muharram, check last year's post here . I can't believe the year has gone by so fast. Hoping it heralds better news than 1425.

Muharram is the First Month of the Islamic Calendar

To Be Chalabi, or Not To Be

A friend emailed me a link to an article which I can only call a ' how to be another chalabi for dummies manual' just substitute the names and places et voila ( thanks ZH), great reading!

So, you're an Arab exile. You've prospered in the United States. You've got lots of influential neocon friends. And now you want to overthrow the .....

Nightmares revisited

I woke up pretty shaken this morning , my recurrent nightmare is back after almost 2 years, to the extent that I thought it had gone. Well it's taunting me back with its horrible scary head, I can taste the same fear, the smell of battleground and hear the voices of my dead or injured People ...another bloodbath in the Middle-East, this time its not Iraq, and it's not Palestine. I hope I'm wrong, especially that there has been some encouraging news of a truce to be announced between Israel and Palestine. I can't seem to find any comfort anywhere..

The results are out

Congratulations to all the winners of the Best Arab Blog Award and thanks to Haitam and Mahmood for setting it up , I discovered so many Arab blogs that I never heard about. Great work guys!

Libya plans to begin a new economic era

I got this link via Wired Temples and found it interesting.

The plans also call for relying on advice and assistance from international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Libya hopes to place resident advisers from those institutions in the central bank,

I mean all these prospective changes seem encouraging and interesting. But I'm having one objection, why the IMF and the World Bank? I'm not an economist here but if I understand my Globalization course 101 well, then wherever these two institutions go the country falls into a debt deficit and can never catch up. I don't object at their presence as eminent consultants on investments and profit making but nothing else. I hope the governement does not make the irreversible mistake of taking anything from them. Libya has hardly any external debt to speak of so this is absolutely not the time to start any silly adventure.

Tragic accident on Tripoli highway!

Tripoli highway 31-01-05


Was flooded with emails today from friends back in Libya regarding a car accident in Tripoli. Well we are used to fatal car accident on a daily basis there ( so what's new?) but this one was more gruesome to the extent it warranted the attention of the news and all these emails...
A 25 car pile up occured yesterday on the Tripoli highway coinciding with rush hour time from the University of El-fateh. A leaking oil tanker hit a small car and all hell broke loose. An acquaintance said that at least 11 of the cars were a wrecked carbonized mass. So far the news about the fatalities are conflicting.The police sources on this Libyan website have mentioned 2 deaths and 7 severe injuries reported in hospital, but eyewitnesses and myself are contesting that . Eyewitnesses say that until last night at 19.00 hrs the death toll was 6 while 25 cars were burnt, one of them being a microbus for 25 people, usually used as cheap transport by students. In fact one of the eyewitnesses upon seeing that bus, rushed over to the university to see if his sister was safe, it turns out she had taken a 5 minutes earlier bus. Tragically a whole family who was travelling in the small car that was hit first by the tanker has been wiped out. This first car caught fire then the fire followed the trail of oil which had leaked on the highway, lit the unsuspecting other cars ablaze. The photo that I have posted is not clea, as it was probably taken by a mobile phone from a safe distance, but you can judge yourself the catastrophe. It is indeed a very sad accident not only because of the human aspect but also because in Libya the population is so small and everybody knows someone who was at least affected whether directly or indirectly by it. Another friend doctor at the central hospital in Tripoli said that ambulances from many Tripoli hospitals had been dispatched to the scene.
I'm very angry because the Tripoli 'circular' highway is literally a death trap; if even a tiny accident happens traffic will be held up for kilometres because it is sealed off in the middle and there are no side alley were help can come from swiftly. If I'm really in a hurry I don't take the highway because I'm afraid to be delayed by an accident. We Libyans are raving lunatics when it comes to driving, speed is our intoxicting agent. I admit that I've been guilty of that as well on many occasions. My father said that it was all the fault of a rubbish collection truck which kept swerving towards the oil tanker.
I was so worried that I contacted all my friends and family to check on their safety, thank God all are fine but I am so sorry for those who did not make it. May they rest in Peace.

Music band in Libya ..

It seems that a US rock band "the heavenly states' has started a short tour in Libya, well I'm not sure about how famous or good these people are because I'm more of a fan or Gun's & Roses, Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden,Steve Vai etc.. , so I'd appreciate if any of the readers could give me some info .

The only western concert I ever attended in Libya was in 2003, it was a German group, and it was held at the Sabratha ruins. I still have the photos stashed somewhere so if I find them I 'll put one up in my update.

update 8/2/05

Well it seems they won't be singing there yet : " Brisbane music manager Eugene Bari has failed in his bid to bring rock 'n' roll to Libya, after a visa mix-up scuttled a tour by US indie band the Heavenly States.The Heavenly States, a Californian band, arrived in Libya on February 1 to play three concerts. The fact that the band's lyrics have a dose of rhetoric criticising US President Bush was not officially mentioned as a possible reason behind the cancellation of the the concerts. [ABC]"

African blogroll and other places I like

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many Africans were blogging from my beloved continent ( after all I'm African too ) check out this quite extensive list with relevant links. Hope you will enjoy another aspect of the blogging world.

On another note I made friends with a Maltese blogger ( * me waving to Robert*), since I love Malta very much, ladies and gentlemen I give you a 'window' on Malta : WIRED TEMPLES.

Many emailed me that they could not find the link to vote on the Arab Blog Awards, well obviously it was because I only linked to the site per se and not the voting section - as you probably noticed I did not canvass for votes . But if you are really interested than why not? here it is
* best Arab ( English)
* best every day life
* best politics

oh boy blogging has become an addiction, better go to sleep now.

'Iraqi forces' committing abuse

"The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell."

"The Iraqi interim government is not keeping its promises to honour and respect basic human rights.

"Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees." courtesy of BBC.com

I guess it's back to business,nothing has really changed. And since the coalition/occupation forces did not turn up to be much better in terms of ethics, sadly the Iraqi forces have no better role model to follow.

Food for thought #2 (2005)

'We have to recognize once and for all that people do not think as we command them to think or as it would suit us for them to think; that the truth is not the monopoly of any particular group or profession; and that, when the illuminating rays of truth touch anyone in any corner of the world, the event alters the geometry of all that was known before. And the clever people are those who keep a close eye on where these rays are appearing or disapearing; who can distinguish between brightness and darkness ; and who do not lock themselves into darkness forever by shutting their eyes. '

Abdolkrim Soroush Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge p.9

Eid Adha Mabrouk Everybody

Today is the 2nd day of the Eid al-Adha. This feast is the most important one in the Islamic world. If they are not performing Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca than the majority of Muslims will sacrifice a sheep on the first day and distribute most of it to the poor people. But the Eid is also very much a family day. Muslims go in the morning to the special Eid prayer and when it ends they return home in processions chanting Allahu Akbar ( God is Great!). Every Eid that I hear this song I feel a weird flashback as if I was back in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and that I was taking part in the procession which entered Mecca victoriously. After the prayers, the families who are making a sacrifice in honour of the Jewish Prophet Abraham who was ordered to prove his faith by sacrificing his own son and who was saved from doing this at the last minute by God...This is a holiday all over the Muslim World, it usually lasts from 4 to 10 days (lucky them) depending on which country you live in. In Libya it is 4 days. It is fun also because we make barbecues and there is a general air of picnic. In the afternoon/evening families visit each other from the closest to the most remote cousins of the tribe ; no one is left out. Neighbours also visit each other and send greetings. Families lso visit the graves of their loved ones and pray for them. This season should better be spent in a Muslim country/or environment.

However the Eid is only the culmination of the period of the pilgrimage or Hajj as stated above. I was going to write about it in detail , but I found that the BBC have done an accurate story so I'll leave you to check it out step by step here and learn a little bit more about the Muslim culture, while I go talk to my family online since I'm missing the whole fun this year.
Have fun everyone with the 'glaiya', '3usban' and all the goodies.. gosh I'm salivating.

'They' just shot her parents



18th of January - Iraq: this kid and her siblings were orphaned courtesy of the US army at a checkpoint, just in time for the Eid al-Adha (the most important Muslim feast - more on that later). I guess 'they' have made a lifelong friend...and don't let me get started on the abuse/torture photos again. Go watch the whole sequence here on BBC ..warning it is graphic for the faint of heart.

Best Arab Blogs Award nominee ? cool



I was reading Kuwait Unplugged as usual, when I noticed that he mentioned being nominated for Best Arab Blogs Awards in several categories, and he really deserves it ! Best Arab Blogs Award was set up by Mahmood a blogger from Bahrein at Mahmood's den this guy rocks. Anyway I went to the link to vote for Zaydoun of Kuwait Unplugged ( voting started yeserday) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that yours truly has been nominated as well in 3 categories for best Arabic (English) blog, best everyday life blog and best politics blogs. I wish to thank the anomymous person who nominated my blog : THANK YOU that was so sweet of you.I wish I knew who you are, didn't think people would notice my ramblings ;)

Now for anyone reading here, if you have the time go and enjoy Zaydoun , Mahmood and the Best Arab Blogs Awards websites, you will find links to lots of interesting subjects and countries.

Personaly I am going to vote for Kuwait Unplugged and Riverbend from Baghdad Burning , and if it was not too late I would have nominated O, from the Iraqispirit .

Boots & Trains in London

Apologies to all who have sent email and to whom I have not replied :)
Haven’t been near a PC since Thursday, not that I miss it ! It’s such a relief to put away all this for a couple of days.
Anyway I was in London for a long weekend, Friday was nice and sunny but then the temperature dropped overnight. I enjoyed myself thoroughly browsing the wonderful bookshops there but also window-shopping on ‘highstreet’, where else but Oxford street?
Things are ridiculously expensive in the UK but even more so in London.
My most mundane activity was looking for a pair of black leather boots. The joke of the day was that if I could not find my dream boots in Oxford street or Harrods then, we would have to fly to Italy specifically. Well I found superb boots, unfortunately another woman was wearing them. Being me I just walked up to her and asked: “ where did you get these boots they are fabulous?” I think she must have been shocked, as this is not typical British behaviour ;).

If you have the time the underground can be great fun, just buy a day pass and off you go riding all day long from on place to another. Mind you watch out for the zones, and remember not to fold that ticket in your pocket, I had the most embarrassing moments at the gate each time.
Anyway London was ‘cool’ but I still prefer Beirut.
It’s 3:30 am now and I can’t sleep as my routine has been disrupted so might as well blog. We went out to dinner with some dear friends and they knew I had to leave on the same day. Yours truly had previously inquired about trains departing from London to ‘X’ and was informed that there was one EVERY hour, so I was cool and confident, but what the information desk staff omitted to mention was that there were no trains in the evening anymore on weekends only coaches . So what do you do at 10.00 pm at the railway station, when your friends have gone back home and you can’t find a ride to your next destination ? Honestly I felt like crying, because no matter how independent some of us are, we Libyan or Arab women are very spoiled, there will always be someone to carry your bag, if you talk to people on the street they will be friendly and protective and though the station was pretty full I started having bad scenarios in my head, not forgetting that I was going to be late for ‘X’. Well if I wanted to leave London that night there was only one way, get a coach. That’s not my cup of tea, it was something I was trying to avoid, plus Victoria Station was not near. Now the underground did not seem so friendly anymore....was getting kind of empty. To cut a story short, I got to Victoria station and managed to secure a place on a very crowded coach to X, it seems everyone was leaving London on Saturday night? Of course when I arrived at X a few hours later, sleepy and frumpy, there were no more taxis at the coach station so I had to ring my best friend to come for me after all. Well what are friends for? will post this then go giggle with her a bit about our school days.

A lesson in security studies: Frankfurt airport January 2005

The best part when you are stuck at an airport for a couple of hours and you don't feel like reading a book or eating the silly nuts at the lounge is guess what ? shopping yay :)
Well I was looking for some interesting shopping some days ago to pass the time and maybe get a few good deals ( you never know with duty free). Shopping I thought was a pretty inoffensive activity. But it seems not anymore, I was surprised that all travellers were prevented from going into section B of the airport for a restricted amout of time. Why do you think? easy , because the frontiers of the United States fight against 'terror' (the new buzz word) has moved to European airports and the restriction of the freedom of other travellers. Yes, actually because there was a flight to the US in section B it has been cordoned off and passengers were prevented from approaching that area. Now if you happen to have a flight departing from one of the gates in that area expect to be asked to come back after the US flight has taken off , unless your plane was leaving more or less at the same time, then it 's another story. However, I did not see any other signs for flights in that section all gates were empty except the flight to the US. Cool those passenger had almost quarter of the airport to themselves . I wonder how much the airport is loosing in sales in that section ?
It must be a terrible pressure that because the US had done a lax job of guarding its own airports it expext EU allies to do the job for her and everybody else to be inconvenienced. But then hey that's a very good security procedure .

Food for thought #1 for 2005

'The " expansion" of Western society or of internatinal society was achieved through the subjugation, plunder, and in some cases massacre, of colonial societies'. Fred Halliday , 1994 (p.62)

Lest we ever forget...any thoughts?

In case you were wondering how I spent New Year’s Eve

You would be surprised to know that it had more in common with Iraq than with partying. So about 8 PM that night just as the whole family was settling in for a quiet night of watching a nice movie on Channel 2 and enjoying pancakes with honey and nice cup of green tea..it started raining. Well that’s not a problem you would say- or is it ? Actually it is, if the rain increases in intensity and is accompanied by thunder. So we had us a beautiful thunderstorm. The lightning struck the electricity pole and of course no more electricity or light etc… which means no more TV, but also no more heating and no more water since our water supply in the house depends on the automatic pump system. When the heaters are off, the temperature in our houses drops at an alarming rate ( house are not really built to cope with extreme cold). So we’re there freezing (it’s -5 degrees outside) in the dark, listening to the sound of thunder ‘explosions’ outside. Nice scenario eh? But that was not all, we had to put up with the howling wind with a gale force of I don’ know how much , but which was frightening enough to have put in my cousin’s head ( who was staying over at our house that night) the grim notion that a tsunami is coming to the Tripoli shores as well ( we live a 100 metres from the beach). She actually suggested that we go sleep on the roof ?!? what in this cold ? no way, let the tsunami come …

10:30 am January 1st 2005
Damage assessment:

2 dead telephone lines struck by lighting
2 very dead telephones
1 UPS struck by lightning (thank God it as not the PC)
1 fried scanner as well
1 fried digital satellite receiver
1 very traumatized cat :)
Me with the flu :(

Could have been worse, thank god we are all alive. No Tsunami and no War.
Let me mention that this has been an extremely cold winter in Libya and in other North African countries and in the Middle-East, just to know how cold it was it even snowed in the Gulf states !

Happy New Year 2005 & the Da Vinci Code


I really hope this won't be an empty phrase because 2004 has not been a very happy one, what with the atrocities in Iraq & Palestine which have become such an ordinary occurance in our daily life, sprinkled with the occasional bomb exploded here & there in the world, and the depressing reelection of GWB and Howard, the ethnic clashes in Holland, the racism in France and the silence in Darfur, the Ivory coast, Chechnya, the Iran earthquake , the Morocco earthquake and so much more that I can't remember but the end of the year is also very sad with the devastating Tsunami toll...I'm not going to ask you to contribute aid , because I'm sure many of you have already done so.

I'm back in Tripoli folks, but my epic travels have not ended yet ;)

On a lighter tone I'd like to say that I'm glad I got to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown before 2004 is over . Absolutely fascinating, I hope to buy his whole lot. Preoccupation with world affairs sometimes makes one forget that there are other things in life, one of them is to enjoy reading a good book !

In Libya it is not part of the tradition to celebrate the New Year, so the city is quiet. However, it has recently become fashionable to send each other sms or emails in that context, the mobile has not stopped ringing with these text messages. It's -3 degrees Celcius here today ( about 26 Farhenheit), which is cold by any means. It has just started to rain so I hope it gets a little bit warmer because there are just so many clothes one can wear...

I'm not going to make any promises or resolutions anymore, life is so precarious that it gets more and more difficult to keep them, but I will TRY to answer your new/recent questions to the best of my ability in a reasonably short time ( does that sound too much like lawyers stuff? ;) ).

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey and hope you enjoyed the Christmas message from Syria.

Signing off for this year ...

Merry Christmas from Damascus

Many Syrians love to decorate their houses from the outside for Christmas and it's a magical sight at night as I thought I was taken to a fairytale land . Look at the two photos below aren't they glorious?

For those 'hottie' fans you will find the promised photo of the belly dancer whose performance I very much enjoyed in Egypt.

Then there is a photo of some school girls which I took at the Old Citadel in Cairo, you can see that Arab school girls look like any other school girls all over the world, despite wearing a scarf you can notice that they are having loads of fun actually. They thought I was a foreign tourist and approached me innocently to talk to me .. they were so sweet and polite.

There is also last but not least a photo of old Amman as you leave the city, taken from the taxi while we were driving past.

Christmas decoration- Syria

Another beautifully decorated house in Damascus



Belly dancer - Cairo- Nile cruise december 2004



Egyptian high school girls on an outing at the citadel of Mohamed Ali ( Cairo Dec 2004)






Old Amman- December 2004


Highlander

Stuck in the ME

Well that should teach me to travel in Christmas time, I can't get a flight back to homebase and I'm therefore missing all my other connections. Actually I don't know why I thought that Christmas flights would not be busy in Syria? all flight are full and I'm waitlisted ...and the weather is tooooooooo cold over here . Just got back from Amman ( a special message to those I have not had the time to send emails or text messages to , but hey you know my mobile so just drop a line ;) ) . I am simply too tired, and there is too much going on.

I'm 'almost' back ;)

I apologize to those who cared for this long disappearing act, sometimes things happen to us and we do not feel like doing anything ( and that includes blogging ) , and no I won't be able to share with you what happened, apart the being ill section perhaps ...
Anyway I'm having a sense of deja vu and you probably would as well when you read that for the last two weeks I've been moving through three continents, Europe, Africa and now Asia....UK, Libya, Egypt, Syria ( now) and next week Jordan. I just got in in from Cairo 3 days ago, would you be surprised that I'm actually tired of going to Egypt? though I loved the belly dancer at the dinner I went to ( have nice photos too - a hottie;)) . Was there during that OPEC meeting, and now I'm in Syria after the latest international Israeli terrorist attack has occurred. The mood here ? Life goes on ....the weather is extremely cold , and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Christmas decorations on many balconies here. Syria has a percentage of Syrian orthodox Christians and the citizens love to decorate their terraces for the festive seasons..I'll try to take some photographs but I doubt my camera is that good for night shots. So I still have plenty to share, just hope I can get back on track ! Hang in there...