Land

This is a quote I like from Ilyas Khouri's novel Gate of the Sun:
"A land cannot move from where the land is. This land will remain and the question is not who occupies the land. Occupying the land is an illusion. No one can occupy land. How can you occupy a land when you are going to end up buried in it? It is land that occupies everyone and takes them to her." ( my translation, pg. 26, re-published edition 2008, Dar el Adab: Beirut)
Thank you Ahmad D. D. for the novel...

Samar Habib

Samar Habib is (was) a professor at the University of Western Sydney and editor of Nebula, an anti-imperialist academic journal where you would expect intellectuals in opposition to write in. And how do you expect imperial institutions to behave against intellectuals opposing the mainstream? Yes, they get pressured, harrassed... and surreptitiously ousted from their positions. Ghazzawiyya bows to the courageous Samar Habib (chapeau bas!), not to mention being an admirer of her work. Read her elegantly edited Islam and Homosexuality.

Goals for women to acheive

Every time I open my hotmail, I come across the trashiest, most sleazy, and unintelligent articles by May Rostom on MSN Arabia. If you try to attack them, your comments won't show up. Instead you find comments such as "I love you", "call me on...", and "are you cheating on me!" posted under recent trashy articles.
But, May Rostam really broke the record on women's rights in this article. I found that not only does the rubbish she writes (like the rest of the trash there )make you queasy, but you could actually envision the gap between the depoliticized Arab elites and the impotent impoverished masses.
"Look at Beyonce, JLO, Kim Kardashian, and lots more, these are Hollywood superstars if they've got curves then so should you" ... Doesn't this sound like a line from Mohammad Iskandar's vulgar and buffoonish song? (see post below)
It gets worse: "Our bodies were meant to be soft and curvy to nurture little babies not hang clothes on" I mean she just set the record for women's rights in the Arab world. Now women have set their feminist agenda to: the sexist Hollywood industry, and becoming baby-pumping machines!
May Rostom is just another native mimicing what is written in the sleazy, sexist articles published by the majority of women's magazines in the imperial west serving the same function of White cowboy comic books given to Black Carribean children; an image they could never live up to, an image of their colonial master.

The best definition of ethnicity out there

"Ethnicity is a filter of through which class and social positions are defined and realized."

Self-limiting

"Drama which neglects all relationships except the personal is self-limiting."

آه يا حبيبتي

آه يا حبيبتي. يا امه خصلة مهفهفة... قلبي اللي مرعوش الأمان. لسه بيحلم بالدفا... لسه بيحلم بالدفا

Why Capitalism is Self-Destructive

This is an excellent talk by David Harvey on the Crisis of Capitalism. Impressive animation too

License to kill: To all Obama lovers

"We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it’s in, and the threats that are leveled against us—against it, that Israel has unique security requirements"

Indian Cochin Port Union Boycotts Israeli Ships and Cargo

It must be long term and not a summer boot camp

Boycott boycott boycott-it's that easy

Now I can watch French Kiss guilt free. I was watching The Human Stain and had the urge to throw a shoe at Nicole Kidman for her support of Israeli war crimes in the war on Lebanon 2006

Karl Marx

I came across this hillarious video by the monty pythons. I couldn't stop laughing. Though I thought Marx should have at least kicked the ball on to the head of saint thomas aquinas!

Down down down you go

"Another problem is the large number of agencies within the government dealing with public relations. To name just a few, there is a directorate for PR in the National Security Council, and PR divisions in the Prime Minister's Office, the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces"

Letters from Palestine

New book about the Israeli massacre in Gaza.

Normalization Encouraged by Italian Ministry

We write against Sapienza University and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' encouragement of normalization masters programme: "we, as Palestinian Students and teachers, would accept this course only if it does not include cooperation with Israeli universities. We ask: is the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s book about the 1948 Nakba The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine an essential course text book in this MA program? Is there a course about the end of apartheid in South Africa and lessons that students can learn from the South African experience? Does the program include a discussion of Palestinian right of self-determination and right of return?"