the question of Care

for the last couple of days, we've been talking a lot about "caring" and "helping" and "reaching out" to people who are presumably worse off than us and in need of help. I thought this story merits consideration:

When the people were starving during the "Year of Ashes," 'Umar took a private oath that he would not touch butter or meat until the people were in better circumstances. This oath he kept faithfully until his skin grew dark and he grimaced if he ate an olive. It happened that there came into the market a skin of butter and a skin of milk, and one of 'Umar's servants bought them for forty dirhams. The servant went to 'Umar to tell him what Allah had granted to him; how this skin of butter and skin of milk had come into the market, and how he had bought them for him. But when 'Umar heard the price he said: "It is too clear; go and give them away as alms. I cannot bring myself to eat what is bought extravagantly. He sat silent for a space and then added: "How can the state of my people be of concern to me if what touches them does not affect me?"

How much do we - can we - care if what touches "them" (those whom we profess to care) does not affect us?

What Bush and Obama have in common...

The Empire v. The Graveyard
An article by Tom Engelhardt

For all their differences with Bush's first-term neocons, here's what the Obama team still has in common with them -- and it's no small thing: they still think the U.S. won the Cold War. They still haven't accepted that they can't, even if in a subtler fashion than the Busheviks, control how this world spins; they still can't imagine that the United States of America, as an imperial power, could possibly be heading for the exits.

Listening to Tracy Chapman...

Born To Fight (wish I could get a better quality video)

They're tryin' to take away my pride
By stripping me of everyhing I own
They're tryin' to hurt me inside
And make me into a white man's drone


But this one's not for sale
And I was born to fight
I ain't been knocked down yet
I was born to fight
I'm the surest bet


There ain't no man no woman
No beast alive that can beat me
'Cause I'm born to fight
They're tryin' to dig into my soul
And take away the spirit of my god
They're tryin' to take control
And monitor my every thought

I won't let down my guard
And I was born to fight
I ain't been knocked down yet
I was born to fight
I'm the surest bet


There ain't no man no woman
No beast alive that can beat me
'Cause I'm born to fight

from the blog of A Family in Baghdad

The ordeal of Gaza......
Thursday, January 8th., 2009

Peace be upon you...

My heart is sad about what is happening in Gaza and its people for two weeks now, and wondering about the lowliness of this world we are living in?

There are cruel people, and there are cowards; cruel people who bomb by warplanes and kill the unarmed civilians with all malice and a dead conscience… and cowards- the neighbors who watch, condemn, and criticize with meaningless, empty words…

And there are the millions of civilians around the world; rallying, marching, sitting-in in protest, burning flags and raising slogans, but who cares?

And- the decision makers are watching, their coldness cannot be interpreted as keeping their nerves under control, but cowardness, slackness, and a conspiracy against those poor people in Gaza, for they abandoned them, leaving them under the daily savage bombardment, the shortage of water and food supplies, besieged in their homes which they cannot leave…

All these sites reminded me of the Iraq war in 2003, what we suffered under the daily bombardment while we were besieged in our homes, waiting for the bombing to calm down so we can send our boys to the bakery to stand in the long line, to get a few loafs of bread; while the electricity went out, and we abandoned the notion of refrigerators in our houses, and had to buy the vegetables each day for immediate cooking only… we had to spend the night in the light of lanterns, and the suffocating smell of kerosene… we listened to the news by a small battery-operated radio, hearing the world’s reaction about what is happening to us, feeling angry and sad because the world abandoned us… living in daily terror, no longer feeling the taste of sleep or comfort, our faces pale, our minds tired, our children fearful, shivering. These were pitch black days…

And now, poor Gaza is going through the same thing… we pray for them in each prayer; that God would give them the victory against their enemy, that their dead would be in heaven, that the living among them should be patient until the catastrophe is ended, that their enemy is destroyed, along with everyone who loves to be arrogant and a tyrant on this earth, that everyone who let them down should be let-down, or whoever collaborated with their enemy to hurt them, even if he was a Muslim, for then his punishment from God would be bigger and more severe, for agreeing to betray his brothers, and shedding their innocent blood…........

Then we sent money donations through professional organizations authorized to gather donations. We know this is not enough, but we believe in God and his justice, He will award everyone with what they deserve- if good, then they will get goodness, if evil, they will get evil. With God, nothing shall go astray in heaven or in earth, not even a grain of mustard (= the smallest possible thing)…

My heart is heavy with pain, but what good will words do?

**************************************

In spite of the material and human loss that has befallen poor, sad Gaza, some people believe that the leadership of Gaza is a bunch of absurd adventurers, that the wise leaderships are those who bow to America and Israel, the leaderships that agreed to play the role of the crippled onlooker everyday, watching the children’s blood and children’s corpses, the cries and tears of mothers, but did nothing to stop those hideous crimes. These leaderships proved that they do not represent their people; for the people are boiling in anger, crying blood for Gaza and its people, while the leaderships always think about how to keep their positions, their chairs. This dilemma revealed the truth about positions; whether they are defeated, cowardly, opportunist, or honest, true nationalist.

What a shameful matter it is that Chavez; the communist leader of Venezuela, decided to send the Israeli ambassador out of his country and to inform him the deep anger of the Venezuelan people about what is happening in Gaza, and the Arab and Muslim people marched to demand throwing the Israeli ambassador out as a demonstration for refusing the killing of the Gaza people, but no Arab leadership, alas, did throw out the ambassador or address him with an angry letter.

These little calamities reveal the true faces, and these actions accumulate to show our people the truth about their leaderships, unfortunately these leaderships do not represent their people, do not reflect the pulse of the people, or their wishes. It has proven that whatever they call- moderate leaderships are nothing but weak puppets in the hands of America. Also now, it became clear to the western people the false claim that Israel is a peace-seeking state, with the evil neighbors. But to the opposite; it is evident now how much of a cruel, evil state Israel is towards the neighbors, and how weak and helpless the neighbors are. It is time for the whole world to see, understand, and re-arrange the calculations about what is happening in what they call- the Middle East; in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Darfur, Somalia, Afghanistan, and other countries that suffer inner conflicts and wars. The stories circulated by the western media are something totally different from the actual reality. But these calamities and mishaps have a single positive face- they are the accumulation of truths until the positive change takes place in the future.

We all want peace in our countries, we all hate unjust people, and injustice, and we should all work to seize the hands of the unjust and tell them: enough!

# posted by Faiza Al-Arji

News from Iraq

Saturday, December 06, 2008 (from the blog Healing Iraq)

"I'm not looking at whether they are guilty or innocent," said Air Force Maj. Jeff Ghiglieri, the president of the review board that convened in May. "We're trying to determine as best we can whether they will do bad things if we release them." Minutes later, the panel unanimously voted to detain Farkhan for another six months.

This proceeding is what has amounted to due process for many of the 100,000 prisoners who have passed through the American-run detention system in Iraq. Although the legal controversy over detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has attracted far more attention, 100 times as many prisoners have been held at Camp Bucca and other Iraqi sites with far fewer legal rights and no oversight by the American court system. The Iraqis are not charged with crimes, permitted to see the evidence against them or provided lawyers.

Iraqi blogs:

Baghdad Burning

Healing Iraq

An Iraqi Tear

A Family in Baghdad

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