Asha

Pause

2008-12-12T12:36:00.001-08:00

Maybe this is futile to say now but this I haven't been writing on this blog for a while and unless this posts disappears I won't continue for some time.....

me back...

2006-07-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

Have access to Blogspot from here (UAE). Btw India is thinking of blocking this site too.

Some thoughts...

Realizing that getting research started on an issue noone wants to talk about or gives a damn can be frustrating.

Realized, that we all have a way of sometimes taking ourselves too seriously. The world would be pretty fine without me for example.

Realized, that I have no freaking idea how I would live in the US again.

Realized, how I have no idea of how I’ll live without the privileges I’m used to.

Was having a pedicure the other day (my first and last) and was like shit yo…I can pay someone to clean my feet.

On a brighter note,

Young kids have a way of making the world go around them and can be so beautiful.

Travelling...

2006-06-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

I wonder if most of you have even stopped reading this blog because of a lack of update. Soon after exams finished, I left for Syria and Jordan and then came back to Cairo for like a day and then headed out to Pakistan. Well not really in Pakistan at the moment. I’m in Abu Dhabi right now.

Don’t even know where to start. Well I’ll just take the chronological approach. Ok so after exams a friend (Sauleh) and I left for Syria. The Syrian embassy in Cairo had been nice about our visas so were like oh…this will be easy breeze. Landed in Damascus and the dude at the immigration just told pointed to another officer and asked us to go there and that other officer just held our passports for a while he flirted with another female officer and then went to this other office with Sauleh’s passport. To cut a looong story short, they decided that they weren’t going to give Sauleh back his passport. Said they’ll keep it and we’ll have to go to the Department of Immigration (from now on referred to as hell hole) to get it. So I was like hold on, wtf? I mean we have a visa and everything. So there is me trying to put on my Arabic charm and asking them to at least give us a freaking receipt for the passport. So we got the receipt but as I was making too much noise for their taste they decided they were going to keep my passport too. Also we landed on a Thursday night and the weekend is Friday, Saturday and we had tickets for Amman leaving on Monday (early morning). The dude at the airport said that our passports would be at the hell-hole on Saturday and that it was open that day. A great beginning to our trip,eh?

However, the horror doesn’t end here. So the next day we’re in the Ummayad Mosque in Old Damascus and we’re at the Shrine on Imam Hussain (the Prophet’s grandson) and guess what happens. My wallet gets stolen out of my freaking purse. Not only did it have quite a bit of cash in it. It had my credit card as well (the ONE time I didn’t take it out before going to somewhere unfamiliar). So I ask the care taker there if he saw anything and when he said nope….I just plopped on the floor and balled my eyes out. The whole passport deal had been stressful enough and this was the freaking last thing I needed. A lot of people came around and asked Sauleh what happened. Most of them were Shia travel groups from Iran and I guess they were pretty appalled that someone would do such a thing at a place like that. Sauleh then saw my wallet tossed in a corner. All the cash was gone but I at least I had my credit card. However, after seeing me ball my eyes out, this old couple comes up to us and the old dude practically offers us all the money he had in his pocket and then this other dude comes up and talks to me in Arabic for a good 20 minutes, trying to calm me down and such and then offers us some money, and says it was a gift and we couldn’t refuse. So there was humanity alive somewhere.

The next morning we went to the Hell-hole and the dude just said, "come tomorrow…we don’t have your passports" and I was like aaaaaaaaaaah. So we go back the next day (Sunday), and they finally have our passports but they were like oh there is some stuff we need to do. And guy 1 gives our passports to guy 2 who gets guy 3 to sign this register and then guy 3 tells us to come tomorrow and I was like "NO, I have a freaking flight and I NEED my passport." So guy 3 sends us to guy 4 and 5 who tell us to come in about 1.5 hours to get our passports. And then when we do they tell us to come tomorrow and then you can imagine my reaction. So after talking to guy 4,5 and 6 making photocopies, getting some papers, getting stuff written, getting signature from guy 6, we go back to guy 4 and he is like., "Ok your passports will be sent to the airport." At that moment I thought I was going to shoot them in the head instead I started crying and shouting hysterically saying, I needed my passport now. So guy 4 freaks out, the entire office is looking at me and the bajillion other people who are there. So guy 4 takes me to the top dude and he sends us somewhere else and that dude sends us back to the top dude and then some more stamps and signatures and me crying like anything…..we get our passports. Oh ya, to add to all this, no one spoke a word of English. I have no idea what people who don’t speak any Arabic do in a place like this.

Needless to say this was not a pleasant experience. But to add to all this we had a flight in a few hours to Amman but no visa…and we couldn’t get visas at the airport and the last thing we wanted was to lengthen our stay in Syria. Now what happened after will be another really long story but to cut it short we landed in Amman and got out of the airport due to the extensive network of my friend’s dad in Amman.

Ok, so I do realize I’ve only given you a horror story version of Syria. Obviously there were good parts too but I guess the stress of the bad parts overshadows the good ones. Btw I have a question….why do dictators have their pictures hung up everywhere? I swear you couldn’t turn move your head 180 degrees in Damscus without seeing a picture of Bashar al-Assad, I even know how his kids look like!

Some quick good things about Damascus… so much less traffic and pollution than Cairo, fresh juices are great, people on the streets are friendly and don’t bother you or shout "antee min fain" every 2 minutes (where are you from?) and no doubt old Damascus is nice. Also, for those who know what this is….got a chance to go to Syedda Zainab’s moulid for a bit which was interesting.

About Jordan….went to Amman, Dead Sea, Petra, Jerash, Mount Nebo and Madaba. Mount Nebo is the place where Moses is believed to be buried and also the place where he ‘promised the land.’ Standing at the spot with Israel/Palestine about 46km away from you and other parts of Jordan stretched out…you once again start thinking of what land and home and the idea of landless people means and how that fits into Arab nationalism in general. In Jordan we were staying with a friend of mine from high school and no doubt had a lovely time.

These are the last 10/11 days in a nutshell. Have more to say about every experience and obviously have a lot of thoughts about the condition in the Arab world and it future. Oh ya, was in Jordan when Zarqawi was killed. People were actually celebrating that. Jordan and Syria no doubt very different from each other and from Egypt (also the change in dialects can get pretty confusing).

Talking about Egypt, around the time my finals were going on there were huge protests in Cairo regarding the trail of two judges (who basically had said that Mubarak rigged elections) and the trial of the dude who dared run against Mubarak. About 400 people were arrested and detained including lawyers, journalists etc. While all of this was happening the White House was welcoming Mubarak’s son (a likely future president). Needless to say I have plenty of frustrations about American policies and the workings of USAID in Egypt.

Ok this entry is getting looong. I’ll end here. I’ve been told by friends here that blogspot doesn’t work from Pakistan as it was restricted there after the Danish cartoon’s controversy so if I can’t post I’ll e-mail and if you read this and don’t get my e-mails and want to get them…lemme know.

Salam.

Random assortment of thoughts

2006-05-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

So why haven’t I been writing more regularly?

1) I’m always thinking…oh I should write that on my blog….but then when it actually comes time to write I don’t feel like I have much to say.

2) Exams….All you folks who get reading period…..believe me bow down to God and thank Her (I’ve decided the female pronoun is more apt for the Almighty). Seriously, I never knew fully realized what a blessing it was. It is HORRIBLE having to write term papers, go to class, do regular homework and study for tests and then exams…all at the same time. We don’t even get one day as reading period. Last day of class and boom the very next day finals start. So basically I’ve been slaving away to academia (or atleast pretending to).

3) Sometimes I come across things that I want the whole world to know but often I’m so frustrated by all of it that my articulation goes down the drain. It is at times like these that I send e-mails to some friends who can put up with me sending them a long e-mail filled with frustration and expletives.

As for why aren’t there any pics from spring break? Because internet at home is not very fast and it takes me ages to download pics.

I’ll talk to you about what I’ve been reading quite a bit about outside the realm of class reading. …. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). I attended a lecture about it a few weeks ago and since then I was moved to read about it more and more. And the more I read the more frustrated and disgusted and helpless I feel. I had always known that the concept existed and that it goes on but it had never hit me in the face as much as now. Anywhere between 50 to 97 % of women in Egypt undergo FGM. It is practiced in 28 countries over the world including countires in Western Europe and North America (mainly due to immigration patterns). However, 18 of the 28 countries where FGM is practiced are in Africa. An estimated 135 million of the world's girls and women have undergone genital mutilation, and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation - approximately 6,000 per day.

The most sever form of FGM is infibulation, also known as pharaonic circumcision. An estimated 15% of all mutilations in Africa are infibulations. The procedure consists of clitoridectomy (where all, or part of, the clitoris is removed), excision (removal of all, or part of, the labia minora), and cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, which are then stitched or held together in order to form a cover over the vagina when they heal. A small hole is left to allow urine and menstrual blood to escape.

At the lecture, the lecturer started his presentation with showing us a video of a girl undergoing FGM. And I couldn’t watch it at all…..and had to go throw up after. This was when the girl was undergoing FGM under local anesthesia and hygienic medical conditions. I couldn’t even imagine women undergoing it without any anesthesia. On a rock behind a bush with the cutting actually taking place with pieces of glass, knife, razor blades or even biting off some pieces. Can you imagine the pain? I certainly can’t.

I read of this case in NY where a father turned up the stereo and then cut her girl’s genitals with a steak knife.

This is what women are….a piece of meat?

A book I read which is the autobiography of Waris Dirie, a Somail nomad becoming a super model…talks about her experience with FGM. She wrote that it would take her 10 minutes to pee just because the hole was only big enough for one drop to be let out at a time. Many women who have undergone FGM experience extreme pain during their period and you can imagine the complications during child birth.

Now I don’t want to portray that all women undergo this under force. Young girls in many parts of the world pester their mothers about undergoing this procedure because they want to be considered grown women and clean and obviously to be considered marriageable. They boast about how small their hole is.

And all this for what? To keep a woman chaste? For man’s pleasure?

Can you imagine the pain the woman goes through the first time she has sex? Isn’t that violence? A man is likely to cut her with a sharp object and then penetrate right after……this makes me want to castrate men.

Issues like these are rampant when among refugees in this part of the world and this is by no means the only thing refugee women have to face, and also this isn’t only a refugee issue….

Spring break

2006-04-21T03:07:00.000-07:00

As one of my friends (MH) have been grateful enough to point out...I haven't been writing much lately. The reason for the recent abscence was because I'm on spring break and am travelling around. Mom's here which is lovely. Was in Istanbul for 5 days and a lovely city no doubt. Would never live there though but that is more because of the language barrier than anything else. Clean and smog-free....and you appreicate that so much after living in Cairo.

So about Istanbul.....think of it this way, it was the capital of the Ottomans for a loooong time and the Ottomans ruled a hella lot and for a centuries too. So there is this grand palace in Istanbul called the Topkai palace and then the museum within in....WAO!! Seriously the grandeur of the royal Ottomans is amazing. They had coffee cup holders with diamonds on them!!!

i knew that Istanbul is called the City of Mosques...but didn't imagine that many mosques. SO MANY! And plenty of pretty old ones. The city is a pleasant mix of different religions (mainly Islam, Judaism and Greek Orthdox) and different levels of conformity or orthodoxy to religion.

Also, saw a performance by the Whilring Derishes...beautiful. I mean you can't go to Rumi's city and then not see that, right?

There is obviously more to say but don't have the time right now....also I think pictures would speak better than words. Though God knows when I'll be able to put them up (now now Habib...calm down!).

Off again tomorrow for 3 days or so...where? You'll find out!

Nothing much...

2006-04-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Nothing too exciting happening. Occupied with mid-terms and such.

Watched the movie "Munich" yesterday....liked it.

Long due photos...

2006-03-24T14:32:00.001-08:00

1) From a restaurant in Luxor, overlooking the Luxor temple.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/d6256015.jpg

2) Luxor temple lit up.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/f1d22e6f.jpg

3) Luxor again.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/1b96001c.jpg

4) Inside a tomb, in the Valley of Kings. The pics here were beautiful. So not allowed to take pics...actually got into a bit of trouble. The stuff Ancient Egyptians did is mind-blowing. Very pretty.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/192dba7b.jpg

5) Inside a Pharoahs actual grave...i.e. where the casket used to be. So not allowed to do that but the guard suggested it with a little something in return!

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6) On our way to the Valley of the Kings.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/d3154731.jpg

7) Karnak Temple. The coolest thing on the planet. It has 134 GIANT columns in it along with some other pretty kewl stuff. My favorite historical site.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/b0fa248b.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/cb867c43.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/d1674bb0.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/cbcb5bc9.jpg

8) Kitchener's Island in Aswan. The whole island is a big botanical garden.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/22b276fe.jpg

9) Looking onto the Nile from Kitchener's Island.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/1e3e8f3e.jpg

10) Nubian tombs on the way to Kitchener's Island. Also a majority of Nubians were displaced when the Aswan High Dam was built. Around 80,000. Its amazing that Nubians have lived as an ethinicity for a gabajillion years.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/7bcab819.jpg

11) Birthday lunch

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12) Midnight on my birthday.

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13) Chocofilo on my birthday. They had like 40 differnt chocolate things on the menue and you could even do chocolate shots..yummmm.

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14) The birthday cake.

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15) Black henna on my hands

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/b3e4a8b8.jpg

16) Omar Khayrat's concert.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/b57b816f.jpg

17) Valentine's day.

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18) A castle/fortress in Alexandria.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/997c26b9.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/2199f455.jpg
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19) Overlooking Alexandria from the fortress.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/6980f527.jpg

20) A Roman theatre in Alex.

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21) From the hotel in Alex.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f307/rgmir/Egypt%20Spring%2006/e3d63666.jpg

Torture

2006-03-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

Reading up on refugee issues and conditions before that force a person into fleeing their country. Pretty disturbing. Here is a little piece of what I was just reading…. and these aren’t even the worse of it all. Every time I read another one I’m like…things can’t go worse than this and then I’m shocked again.

A woman in the Middle East:

I was home the day the soldiers came to our house. I was afraid and crept under the table and I saw how my mother talked to the soldiers, and my little sister- she played and laughed. The soldiers asked my mother, “Where is your brother?” My mother became frightened and didn’t answer. “I don’t know,” she answered finally. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” said the soldiers, and they shot my mother and my little sister. My mother lay there, and I cried and ran and told my uncle about it. He cried and tore at his hair and hit himself on the head. “Come with me,” I said. And we saw that my mother was dead. That was very common in my country. I was 14 when it happened.

And to remind us of slightly older struggle….Part of a testimony of a political prisoner after the military coup in 1973:

Ceaser C. was 27 years old political community leader with some high school education; he was married and had three children. He was arrested seven times between 1973 and 1977, each time with great violence. He was subjected to a series of tortures: being beaten all over his body for four hours at a time; simulated executions; deprivation of sleep for 48 hours; humiliation and harassment; broken teeth caused by stones put into his mouth and then hammered; witnessing his brother’s torture with electric prods; and other forms of violence and humiliation. Cesar has electric shock applied to his genitals for 12 hours at a time, losing consciousness several times, and was hung by the neck; metallic objects of different sizes simulating a penis were introduced through his anus and then electric shock applied; he was partially suffocated with plastic bags and his head forced into pails of water or urine and excrement. He was forced to witness the raping of women by soldiers and trained dogs. Torture inflicted upon him resulted in brainwashing and sever disintegration, which led him to betray two of his closest clandestine political contracts. Subsequently, his having informed on his friends constituted the core of his disturbance. (Testimony taken in April 1979).

Something like this is probably happening in some part of the world as I write this….

Me gusto Luxor

2006-03-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

Was traveling to Upper Egypt (i.e. southern Egypt…..confusing eh?) for the weekend. We’re talking about a 13 hours train ride here. Went to Luxor and Aswan with some friends. Apart from being almost continuously hassled by people trying to sell us stuff for ridiculous prices Luxor was pretty nice. My favorite part was the Karnak Temple. Apart from the fact that it is HUGE and was buried under sand for a 1000 years before some archeologists found it….that place is mind boggling. It has 134 GIANT columns. All prettied up with intricate carvings and drawings. I have absolutely no idea how folks 1000s of years ago made this thing. The temple for me along with the Valley of Kings for me is even more amazing than they pyramids. Will try to post up pics soon.

Aswan….went to a nice little island there called Kitchener’s Island. It is basically a big garden. So the stereo-type in the north about people in the south is that they are very conservative. Didn’t like Aswan that much. People weren’t as helpful and hassling was taken to a whole new level along with this idiot who was being extremely rude.

And also at Aswan we were trying to get an earlier train back to Cairo and when one of my female friends (who is Egyptian-American) went to the ticket window the dude was pretty snappy and was like “mish makan” (there isn’t any place). So I thought he was bsing so I asked a guy friend to go ask the same thing (even though he doesn’t speak much Arabic) and wolah! we have tickets for an earlier train. The girls were obviously really pissed off.

One more thing about here is that people don't really get that they shouldn't really ask personal questions to people they've just met (actually this happens in many other countries too). You exchange a smile with someone and they ask you if you are Muslim, married, why don't you cover your head, have kids (if you earlier told them that you were married which I often do!), how long you're here for, do I like Egyptian men etc etc. Majority of people think I'm from India and sellers think that its a good idea to attract my attention by saying, "YA India".....grrrrr...

An interesting contrast from Pakistan. I was surprised here to see women working in stores, shops and photocopying centers etc. Places where they won’t work in Pakistan. So my initial reaction was "oh…women here have more liberty than women in Pakistan." And then incidents like the one I mentioned above happen… like women not getting the correct information or plumbers refusing to talk to the women in the house even if there aren’t any men around. Jacked up stuff like that which makes me wanna smack someone on the head.

It is dust storm weather again….EWWW! Really hope we don’t have another dust storm (and that’s like hoping for no snow in MA in November).

Btw check out the cartoons on aljaeera.net. Pretty good.

Some basic info...

2006-03-09T01:25:00.000-08:00

Here are some very basic pieces of info about refugees in Egypt (or in general):

1) There are approximately 14 million refugees worldwide. However, keep in mind that the definition of a refugee according to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Statuf of Refugees, a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, memebership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality or habitual residence and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that countr of to return to it." The 14 million therefore, doean't include displaced people within countries.

2)The majority of refugees are from Africa or the Middle East.

3) Almost 25% of the world's refugees are Palestinians.

4) Half of the world's refugees have been "warehoused" in camps for more than 10 years.

5) In Egypt, there are about 22,000 people who have been granted refugee status by UNHCR. The majority of these people are from Sudan and Somalia.

6) Along with the above there are 50,000 to 70,000 Palestinian refugees currently living in Egypt.

7) Less than 1% of the world's refugees are resettled in "Western" countries.

On Ciscoee's request...

2006-03-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

Saeead wa saeedat…here is a long due blog update. So where I have been…where should I start.

So I’m teaching English at a couple of places and one of those is a group of Sudanese and Somali refugee women. Learning a lot about refugee issues in general which is interesting…I’ll post some basic hard facts about refugee issues in my next post.

I’m also taking this class on the psychosocial effects of forced migration and in the last class we talked about different forms of torture and sexual abuse/rape. Not a very cheerful topic but makes you think how any human can be capable of doing all of that. Along with that reading and trying to comprehend how much the colonial powers screwed us over. This is further highlighted by some other stuff I read for a class about how screwed up our economic system and how much capitalism is systematically based on the backs of people who are exploited generation after generation and their land and water ripped off all resources. I

Continuing on some politics….Rice was here a week or so ago. And there were protests in regards to that. As you might know Rice was on a tour of the Middle East to convince the Arab leaders to stop supporting Hamas (who has won a lot of seats in the recent Palestinian elections) and to pressurize Iran to stop its nuclear program and open it to inspection. Well, telling Cairo to talk to Tehran is not very smart considering the two countries don’t have good relations between them. Also, there was some criticism/ Western media bias about the Muslim Brotherhood (an orthodox religious party in Egypt) planning to raise money for Hamas in case US imposes economic sanctions.

Now this whole sanction business… does it ever work? Or does it only screw the people over?

Also, went to this talk in which they discussed the effects of “The Wall” or security fence that is being built by Israel around Jerusalem which will also take up a lot of the West Bank . I’ve heard of so many accounts of Palestinians and people who work in that area who say that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are like giant prisons. The mobility of the people living inside there is extremely restricted…so is the amount of food or anything else that is going inside it. In the talk they also discussed the actual results/consequences of the Israeli de-settlement in Gaza. Well Israel still controls the water and the air space and so does it control the main commercial entry point into the West Bank. I don’t have my notes on this on me right now but will definitely be putting them up. Once again, thank the colonial powers (and now the imperial ones) for decades worth of bloodshed and hate.

(To see maps of Israel and Palestine including checkpoints and the wall
http://www.palestinercs.org/reference_maps.htm)

I think one thing that I’m very much reminded of being outside USA is how much the US gets away with. Try to see “Paradise Now” if you can. Not mind blowing but the only movie made on this subject without an extraordinary bias towards the Arabs.

I’m now going to drastically change the tone of this post….

Went to a kick ass concert tonight by Omar Khayrat….one of the most famous composers in Egypt and a brilliant pianist. Beautiful music.

I’m also one tooth less since about a day ago…..long boring and painful story so lets not go into it.

I’m taking Swahili!!!! Well about thirty to forty million people in the world speak it as a second language and about 5 million as their first and the class is being offered for really cheap…I’ll only learn the basics…but hey…why not?

Oh crap....

2006-02-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

More pictures, more anger...more hatred.

Following are more images of abuse in Abu Ghraib.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4716280.stm

US reaction to it as reported by the leading English newspaper in Pakistan:

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/16/top6.htm

Arab reaction:

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/16/int2.htm

Violence in Pakistan growing because of the cartoons...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4715084.stm

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/16/local4.htm

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/16/local5.htm

And EU backs Denmark....brilliant.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/16/int6.htm

Controversies and uproar....

2006-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

So everyday since the event has taken place I’ve been meaning to write about it. And finally I sit here in my apartment from where I can hear the Friday prayers going on in the mosque nearby contemplating what the hell the Danes were thinking?

My first reaction to what has happened what to brush it away being like, “oh religion again.” Then I heard a small rally in AUC protesting against the Danish newspaper. And then I was like wao, even the rich brats and the elite of Egypt think this strongly about it. So I got off my lazy bum and read up some more on the issue.

So far my deepest emotion about the whole issue is why now? There has been enough said about religious respect vs. freedom of speech but what I’m thinking is do we really need this? “Muslims” and the “West” don’t seem to be getting along at all and events like these exacerbate the position more than anything else. For me it’s not just about this issue. It’s about how this issue fits into the grander scheme of things. If this event has angered and brought thousands of Muslims from all walks of like onto the streets, then I think it is being ignorant to brush them all away by calling them “intolerant extremists.”

I know Denmark had nothing to do with what happened in the US on 9/11 or what happened in the world thereafter. However, Bush himself has made the whole issue of War against terrorism a lot more than what US has. You can’t slip in words like “crusade” into your speech when talking about this issue and then think that the issue won’t spill over geographic boundaries. Today while the West is busy lumping all Muslims together, many Muslims are busy stereotyping all non-Muslim Westerners.

And issues like these exacerbate this divide even more. One the one hand you have generations of people growing up in the “West” thinking of Islam as an intolerant and violent religion and on the other hand there are generations of Muslims thinking that they are hated and discriminated against. Where are we going to end up with this?

I was surprised to see this coming from Denmark mainly because I hold Scandinavian countries to a higher PC standard. A personal bias. Do I support what they did? No. It’s not so much the actual printing of the cartoons but mainly the reaction that followed. I just don’t think that you can so deeply offend millions of people of a religion on the pretext that its for freedom of speech. All of this cannot be compared to controversial images and pieces of art about Mary and Jesus. Firstly because there is pictorial representation of Mary and Jesus in Christianity in the forms of paintings in Churches, statues etc. There is absolutely nothing like that in the Muslim world. You’re being religiously insensitive as it is with even trying to draw Muhammad in the first place and then drawing him with a bomb in his turban is way beyond the boundaries.

Secondly, controversial paintings in Christianity like that of Mary hitting Jesus on her lap (I forget where it was displayed) still comes from people and countries that are pre-dominantly Christian. I think the Muslims would have reacted very differently to this if it came from a Muslim even if not a Muslim country. I mean Iran would have probably had a price on the head of the person and some Western European country would have granted the person asylum (hmm…think Salman Rushdie?)

Do I support what Iran has done? No. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Just don’t.

Some articles to get the facts and stuff:

To start off:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/arts/design/08imag.html?8hpib

The 12 cartoons:
http://wnymedia.net/images/cartoons/cartoons/index_html.html

Iran’s response:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/international/middleeast/08iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Danish "dissident of Islam" MP’s statement:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4698528.stm

Pics from Cairo

2006-02-10T09:30:00.002-08:00

Near Al-Azhar mosque, flower girl, dinner at Abou El Sid with friends, Islamic Cairo and G-Mo, Standing outside the Egyptian Museum (the best museum on the planet), carving some chicken, good ol' pyramids, Some Egyptian spirit during the African Cup (Egypt is playing Ivory Coast in finals today).....(some pics will be later removed).

Aaaachooo

2006-02-07T00:56:00.000-08:00

So I'm just coming out of an evil evil bout of cold and high fever. Had a nasty cough and was completely out for 2 days. One of which was the last day Cisco was in town so that suxed doubly bad. May, Cisco, G-Mo all back in good ol' Cambridge. Almost have my classes sorted out. Have photos to upload which I'll do when I get internet in my apartment (which should be soon).

Happily breathing through my nose!

Alex, friends and classes

2006-02-01T01:53:00.000-08:00

Don't have internet access in my apartment thus e-mail replying and maintenance of blog hasn't been that great. Started classes today. I have a 9am class four days a week (good ol' Arabic) which is a part of the schedule I'm definitely not excited for. So far have only had one class but am looking forward to the others.

Went to Alexandria for the weekend. It was part of orientations. Visited the catacombs, old Roman Theatre and Bibliotheca there. The Bibliotheca was definitely my favorite. It’s a modern building and their reading area can accommodate upto 2000 people. Currently they have about 500,000 books but their capacity is about 8 million. They have theses really kewl windows which are shaped like eyes which filter in the sunlight but not in a way that would hurt the eyes. So during daylight they don't need any other form of lighting device coz the sunlight is enough. We were staying in a hotel outside Alex and the beach there is beaaautiful. Blue water and white sand. Though I wish it was warm enough to swim in. I think I'll be going back to Alex (what folks call Alexandria here).

So have a couple of college friends visiting. One of them being Cisco. So the first day Cisco gets here I manage to lose him in the Metro (subway). Well it was my first time on the Metro too and what we didn't know is that once the doors close to the train they don't open. Its not like the door is almost closing so you stick your arm in and they open again. So I jumped into the Metro and he didn't and the doors closed. He did know which station we were getting at. So I go to the next station (Opera) and wait for him but he doesn't come and then the next one (which we were supposed to go to) and wait with no luck. So go back to Opera and see him getting on a train, so start yelling his name (by now the entire station thinks I'm a crazy foreigner). Go back to the earlier one. Wait no luck. Get upsettingly harassed by 4 guys. Stressing like mad. Go back to the original station. And wait and wait and wait. Call the American Embassy who say they can't do anything till 2 hours have elapsed. At the end, he had managed to find his way back to my apartment and was a lot calmer than I was.

However, this isn't the end of all this. We were supposed to meet up in Alex and he ended up going to another hotel which had a similar name to my hotel. Well the hotel he was at was about an hour away from where I was and on top of that the only way to go from my hotel to his was taking a limousine. Let's just say the solution to this problem was pretty pricey at the end but I'm glad he was safe.

Thank God things after that have been fine.

Oh ya, went to the Egyptian Museum day before yesterday. I'm definitely not a museum person but this place kicked arse. Its not that the building is well maintained or the things are organized, it is just that they have a lot of really kewl stuff. Actually they have so much of it that its just lying around, clustered everywhere with no captions. Man the pharaohs were REALLY smart people. The things they have made boggle your mind. Whether it be 50 feet high statues, caskets, giant carts, chariots or extremely intricate art work….its all just amazing. I can't believe that they could make all this so long ago without modern machinery. The argument that they were just aliens seems extremely plausible because I just can't imagine how anyone could do all this thousands of years ago. Extremely impressive. They must be really obsessed with the idea of morality to do so much for the after-life. And come to think of it they had a very different concept of the after-life than what any religion presents today. Can totally understand why people dedicate their lives to Egyptology now.

Also, saw the pyramids and the sphinx. Went into one of the pyramids which is just like half-crawling, half-walking in a claustrophobic tunnel which leads to a big empty room which tells you that the pyramid was accessed in 1818. Its also amazing what role thieves have played in the discovery of all this. The catacomb I visited in Alex was accidentally found by a donkey!

Have a cough now and all the smog in the air is getting a little hard to bear but I guess I'll get used to it.

Ma Salama.

End of finals

2006-01-24T03:25:00.000-08:00

Today I officially begin my semester abroad. Had to give a Harvard exam here "exam in absentia." Boy, did that sux or what. Yucky science cores. Right now I'm trying to not think of the exam and thinking of ways to entertain the 4-5 friends that I have coming over to Cairo within the next 48 hours.

So Professor Granara is also in town and he took Senait and I to a lovely dinner last night. Tried molekhya...a traditional Egyptian dish and was done nicely. Doesn't go too well with the Lebanese red wine. You gotta have the wine first! Ok so Granara was in Egypt during 1973-75 which is an extremely interesting time to be in Egypt as it was in war. So stories from that time and then in the early 80s with economic depression and its effects were very interesting. On top of that his scandoulous tales of Arab women flirting with Western men. He was great!

Oh ya the African Soccer Cup is being held in Egypt so the South African team was at the same restaurant as us last night.

Hmmm...a little about first impressions of Egypt. A city of 15 million people with an additional 5 million people coming in and out of the city for work. Haven't been around at all so far. Have only see a little bit of downtown (where AUC is), the neighhborhood I live in and Zamalek (where the student dorms are). Zamalek is uber foreigner friendly. There are "western" restaurants or Egyptian food anglicized.

Downtown for Pakistanis...reminded me a lot of Karachi. Excited to go to the Islamic part of the city.

So we are taught fusha or Modern Standard Arabic in school and people on the streets speak a dialect..a'amiya. This is true for the entire Arab world. And a'amiya is pretty different from MSA. They conjugate their verbs weird and don't pronounce certain letters or pronounce them differently from MSA. Have had some funny incidents coz of this.

However, I had an entire conversation with the cleaning lady in which I explained a lot of things to her and we communicated pretty ok. Was quite proud of myself. Well she was pretty darn patient (and uber strong) but come on I just came out of a bad exam...gimme some credit.

However, soon Arabic classes are going to start and grammar will continue to smush my brain everyday.

Was thinking how easily I've moved myself from the "Pakistani government frustration with earthquake stuff" mode to "yay! I'm in Cairo" mode. Everytime I think of where I was only a few weeks ago I am strongly reminded of the phenomenon "survivor's guilt." Now now don't barrage me with e-mails saying that we all need to enjoy ourselves etc etc. I think that we all need to be also reminded of what we have so we stop taking things for granted.

And yes sooooo much easier said than done. And yes the idea is cliched and the concept not in action.

In Cairo

2006-01-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

Not much to say for now. Settled in my apartment (or as settled as you can be after being in a country for 2 days). Getting used to Friday and Saturday being the weekend and Sunday being a work day. Jet-lagged, nice weather, arabic not too terrible...doing ok so far.

On my way to Cairo...

2006-01-20T02:51:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to drop in a line to say that I'm on way to Cairo. Will be writing about Pakistan but would also be including experiences from Cairo.

Photos

2006-01-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

This is taking way longer than expected but here is a start...

Heavy rain on the way to Kashmir

Note how much of the tents are submerged in water

Tents collapsing after rain and snow

The biggest tent city in northern Pakistan. This is in the valley after Gari Habibullah and is run by the Pakistani army. This picture was taken about a 1000 ft over the city.

On my way to Balakot.

Snapshots of Balakot

Once a school

Once a college

One of the 2 standing buildings in Balakot

Graves everywhere. Sometimes it seems like people are living in a graveyard.

How they get drinking water.

Trying to save what they can.

From one place to another

2006-01-15T19:22:00.000-08:00

Have been out for a bit because I've been getting ready to travel and then been travelling. Pretty disoriented right now which in other words is called being jet-lagged. More to say about what was up in the Northern Areas in Pakistan but for the latest take a look at what good old US has been upto in that part of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/international/asia/15pakistan.html

This article is about protests in Pakistan against the recent US airstrikes.

Politics behind the devastation

2006-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

Folks have asked me to talk a little more about the whole Kalabagh issue and what it’s all about. Well I’m no expert on the issue and knew very little about the issue till before this trip home. Pakistan is an agrarian economy and thus where dams are built and who controls the flow is an important issue. The Kalabagh dam has been in the public discourse for a number of years now. Sindhis and Pathans are of the opinion that the construction of the damn would give more water control to the Punjab area and they obviously wouldn’t want that. Punjabis obviously deny that. Musharraf and other folks like the ex-president of WAPDA (Water and Power Development Authority) are very pro-dam as they think that such structures are necessary to prevent the desertification of Sindh and Punjab and flooding of NWFP. There are several other dams whose construction is on the table. This probably all sounds very confusing and this is because I’m summarizing decades long discourse in a paragraph.

Just wanted to give you an idea that there is a contested public discourse going on. Now what our lovely President or Chief of Army Staff (whichever you prefer) has been kind enough to do is that he has started up this whole issue which takes away a lot of media attention from the earthquake hit areas. At one-point earthquake hit areas was all that was being talked about on some TV channels and now its Kalabagh dam. For once regardless of ethnic differences the country was united behind a cause and now we’ve disintegrated into our various factions. The colonial legacy of “divide and rule” is still alive and kicking.

As for the government…there is no concrete plan of rehabilitation or reconstruction. Here we’re talking about entire villages, towns, cities and districts destroyed and the rubble, disease, trauma and helplessness that comes along with it is not just going to magically disappear. Kashmir might have seen less of the physical damage (well relatively speaking) but the amount of work being done there is pretty low as well. The government has done a very good job of getting the roads back in working condition to allow better access and is good about distributing food. So they might not die of hunger but they will die of disease and cold if their condition isn’t approved. The lack of coordination means that organization X doesn’t know what Y is doing and there might be 20 organizations in one place and none in another.

We find our usual cases of cronyism. Contracts for tent materials being assigned to good old buddies. And when I say that the tents are pathetic I mean it. Don’t think hi-fi Pakistani army tents in Siachin. Think about tents that can NOT stand rain or snow. When last week a journalist asked a government official of his opinion on the failing condition of tents that keep falling, he said, “Tou kiya howa…agar tents gir rahay hain tou unhay uthaya bhee ja sakta hai.” (So what if the tents are falling…we can lift them as well.) Real smart guy I must say.

Then we also have our “militant organizations” going all gung-ho in these areas. And by this I mean that there are a couple of religious organizations that have been titled as militant by the US State Department but they’ve done a good amount of work. There is political tension between them and the secular organizations. Nothing dangerous (or so I think) but it still becomes apparent.

What pissed pissed me off was soldiers standing around with guns in Balakot, Mansehra, Gari Habibullah etc. Now why the hell do we need that? There is one thing to be available near areas where people are living to offer security and there is another to be standing somewhere all pompous useless. I admit this is a gross generalization and not every person in the military is like that. It’s probably my strong bias against the military/defense industrial complex coming out again.

From NWFP...

2006-01-06T06:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve come out of Balakot and adjoining areas. In case folks don’t know, Balakot is in the NWFP province of Pakistan and is one of the areas which has gotten a lot of media attention. The devastation there is unbelievable. There are only 2 building that still stand in the entire city and adjoining villages. Just 2 buildings. There is so much rubble everywhere. The worst is that you can see whats happening in the city. There are so many areas within the mountains where one can only reach by foot. The extent of destruction there is still not fully known. There are tons of NGOs doing work within Balakot. Even the military is active. This is both good and bad. Good because Balakot has resources to develop and bad because these resources diminish exponentially as you leave the city. As Balakot got a lot of media attention many people have been focusing there.

The amount of work that needs to be done is gigantic. Entire cities need to be cleared up off all the rubble and then built all over again. Once you cross Abbottabad you’ll see tent villages/cities everywhere. Its looking at the amount of those tents that the amount of people homeless really sinks in. the majority of these tents are not winterized so the insulation against cold temperatures in minimal. Also, these people can’t light fires to warm themselves, as open flames within tents is a big fire hazard. Along with this, as the snowfall increases these tents can’t take the weight and are falling.

How the hell are these people going to survive? I don’t know. Its not even capital that is the problem anymore, it is the lack of coordination and lack of human power within these areas. The government/ military is best suited for the job and they’re definitely not doing it. As the winter sinks in the amount of volunteers in the area is reducing.

Balakot feels like living in a graveyard there are graves everywhere. People live next to these graves. Can’t even imagine the psychological effect of this. I was talking to a woman, Khadija, who is now responsible for 5 kids and has lost her husband and has no source of income. Kahdija was telling me how her brother and sister-in-law left their 4 year old son and 6 month old daughter with her on the day of the earthquake as they were going to go to the market to buy some things. They never returned and neither did her husband and oldest son. She said, “Tussee dassoo jee main kee karan. Aina bachian da khiyal karan yaan the bahir jaa kar rozee kamawaan?” (translation: Now you tell me, should I take care of the kids or go out and earn to feed them?” There are thousands of stories like these.

Every single person I talked to has lost someone. People there were very friendly. As we walked by people would greet us. It’s a big tea culture there so people would be like “As-salam-alaikum, chai piyain gain?” (Muslim greeting, would you like some tea?) I was surprised at the willingness of people to be hospitable even in conditions like these. Day before yesterday the weather was really good so people were out doing things. It seemed like every single person was doing something or the other. May people are trying to salvage what they can out of the rubble to rebuild houses. That usually means getting bricks and lead rods for the house structure. Young children would carry water or other things in wheelbarrows to their houses up on the mountain.

Gotta go for now.

Devastation...

2006-01-02T22:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I came back from visiting Abbottabad, Mansehra and Azad Kashmir (mainly Muzaffarabad). I spent most of my time in Muzaffarabad. It was everything I could have imagined it to be but worse. I thought I was pretty well prepared to see all that I did see and hear. And come to think of it I was. I mean I did what I needed to do without bursting out crying. On my way there I read a billboard with pictures of earthquake victims and it said, “ Imtahan un kee bay basee ka nahin hamari insaniyat ka hai.” Rough translation, “ This tests not their hopelessness but our humanity.” Very true.

This is going to be a ramble more than anything else. I don’t think I’ve sorted out all that I saw in my head yet. On the way there imagine the sharpest bends you’ve ever seen and multiply it by 4 or 5 times. Its all through mountains and not for the faint of the heart. On our way there we stopped to help out in rescuing a car that had fallen into a ravine. Thank God it wasn’t like 8000 feet deep. The car was resting on a couple of tree trunks. The people in the car were injured but alive. A lot of time I would just close my eyes while we were driving.

You see tent villages all along the way from Abbottabad. A lot of UNHCR tent sheets and a couple of UN cars. The amount of volunteers that has gone down is HUGE. As the cold gets worse people want to leave and I can understand that. It’s COLD and it is raining or snowing continuously for the past 3 days and there are no radiators in the tents.

About tent villages….man people need to get the hell out of there as soon as they can. Its so damn cold and almost all the places have no sanitation or garbage disposal system. Children play near all the garbage and temporary latrine places. Oh man….I haven’t yet talked to a child who hasn’t lost either a parent, grandparent or sibling. That’s true for all. Muzaffarabd has been destroyed. There is rubble and broken houses everywhere. It feels like death resides in the city. Why the hell doesn’t the Pakistani government clear it up? Why the hell did the government started the whole Kalabagh dam issue when we need to be focusing on the survivors? There is no way NGOs can do the work that the Pakistani military can. They need cranes and more cranes and a LOT of human power.

There are huge puddles of water everywhere. The water seeps into the tents. People especially kids and older people are dying of pneumonia or are sick with chest infections. I was talking to folks from Doctors without Borders that are working in the Nilam Valley and they say that it’s the same everywhere. This isn’t even counting the psychological trauma people are going through. People have made tents over the rubble that was once their house. They refuse to leave that place.

At first I used to think that all these people need to be moved out of their areas but looking at what’s happening in the tent city in Islamabad I think otherwise. People who have been moved have no source of income and are extremely dependant on aide. They are also frustrated as they don’t have any idea of when they’ll be sent back. If they will be sent back or how will they be rehabilitated?

I’m rambling…..

I’m mainly working with Edhi Foundation on their shelter program. Its pretty well documented and seems to be working well. More to come on that next time.

Right now I’m also pretty sick, I’ve had food poisoning so I’m throwing up even if I try to drink water. I’m at my aunt’s place in Islamabad and was going to go to Balakot, Battagram and Bagh today but got sick (damn it). Hopefully I’ll be able to go tomorrow.

More to come….let me know if you guys have specific questions or want me to write in detail about something. Also, any suggestions on what’s the best way to upload pics on the web for people to see? I already sux at taking pictures and I honestly tried some time but after some time you just give up. Coz you don’t know what to picture anymore…I don’t think the devastation can be summed up in those photographs.

I haven’t gotten a chance to reply to e-mails so sorry about that. Haven’t had a lot of internet connection.

post on brain drain

2005-12-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Interesting post about brain drain in Pakistan...some of the comments are a little too cheesy though.

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00001119&channel=civic%20center&threshold=1&layout=0&order=0&start=340&end=349&page=1