In Gaza, even the walls go underground

A wall is going down at the Egypt-Gaza border - but by ‘down’, I do not mean it is falling: it is going underground. 20 to 30 meters deep, to be exact.

After unconfirmed rumours first reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz and promptly denied by the Egyptian government, images - attributed to media-friendly smugglers - surfaced in the Egyptian press and confirmed that Egypt was indeed building an iron wall along its border with Gaza strip, aimed at blocking the multitude of tunnels that link Egyptian town Rafah with its Palestinian eponymous counterpart.

The wall will stretch for 11 kilometres long, from the Mediterranean to Israeli-controlled border point Kerem Abu Salem. It will be exclusively underground.

At a press conference Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Fawzy Barhoum was understandably very critical of the wall's construction. The construction, says Barhoum, is "American-funded and supervised. It comes in tail of the US plan that began under Bush to suffocate the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, after the Zionist enemy has failed to break their will".

With US and Israeli encouragement, a nervous Egypt has been silently yet steadily contributing to the Israeli-imposed blockade by tightening its own border with Gaza. After Gazans blew up a segment of the wall in January 2008 and entered Egypt for a massive shopping spree, a new 3-meters concrete wall was built along the border. Egyptian authorities now claim that the new underground wall tightening the border is a matter of national security, to prevent weapons being smuggled into the Gaza strip. It is also actively searching for, and destroying tunnels.

“A network of several hundred tunnels”, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), brings into Gaza “a range of materials, including foodstuffs, beverages, livestock, medicines, fuel, cement, paper, spare parts and other goods”. Even zoo animals have been smuggled through the tunnels, whose owners provide a lifeline for the 1.5 million Gazans stranded in the small territory for several years now under a seemingly interminable blockade. Goods allowed entry into Gaza are in drastically short supply and tightly controlled by Israel, whose lists of goods inexplicably forbidden entry include such items as jam, toilet paper, and chickpeas.

Tunnelers are not only moved by compassion and humanitarian concerns, though - tunnels are a lucrative business. Digging a tunnel can cost several tens, maybe hundreds thousand of dollars, but it seemingly recoups its costs rapidly. At the reported going rate of $1500 to move a person, $250 per cattle head and the same per sack of goods, the tunnel covers its fixed cost, as well as the running costs - which include electricity, even telephone lines, occasionally ventilators, and a tax levied by the government authorities per shipment.

Despite the announcement of the underground barrier, tunnelers remain upbeat, vowing to dig through, or bypass the barrier altogether. "Let the Americans and the Israelis pay for the wall," said one to the Egyptian press. And if the barrier is indeed impossible to cut through, wel, "the tunnels are minimum 20 meters underground. We can make it 40 meters."

But in that event, the cost of digging will necessary increase - and consequently so will the price of smuggled goods.

A few days shy of the first anniversary of last year’s three weeks-long Israeli assault on Gaza, which killed upwards of 1400 persons including several hundred children, the Strip remains in a pitiful state. Barely any reconstruction has taken place - the tunnels offer drastically insufficient supplies of construction materials, that international organisations are not allowed to make use of by their own internal guidelines.

But the cat-and-mouse game can only go this far, and the pressure on Gaza’s Palestinians, already unsustainable, cannot be allowed to increase any further. Easing, ending the blockade is inevitable.

"Islam Conquers Jerusalem", says Haaretz

I was reading an article on Haaretz when an advert on the page - a paid one, in all likelihood - displayed the delightful images below:


If it's not too clear, allow me to describe it:
In white bleeding caps, the caption says "ISLAM CONQUERS JERUSALEM", above a view of the Old City. Second later, the daytime scene darkens - night - and then suddenly becomes that of a Jerusalem in flames.
The message couldn't be clearer, obviously.

Clicking on it leads you to an Arab-hating, Jewish supremacist website. More precisely, it takes you to a post that advocates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and stating that Israeli statehood should be crafted "in the blood of our enemies". Delightful, isn't it?

(interestingly, this post does recognise that Arabs are the indigenous population of Palestine, and that Jews are the 'colonizers'. Perhaps we agree on something after all).

There is is plenty of such hate speech on internet. Racists with a computer are a dime a dozen. However, I find appalling that the advert would show this bluntly on Haaretz, supposedly the only newspaper with a brain (and journalistic ethics) in Israel.
(Just so we're clear: Yediot is a populist newspaper, Maariv copies Yediot, and Israel Hayom is a Likud mouthpiece).

Especially that the website in question proudly states that it's been banned Google AdSense for "unacceptable content" and "advocating against a group", Adbrite shut their account, and Amazon deleted their reviews.

Why is Haaretz allowing this hateful message on their website? do they need screen for the content they advertise? Are they so desperate for the cash? Or do their commercial and editorial departments find it alright to encourage ethnic cleansing?

Shame on you, Haaretz.

So your action is needed! Contact Haaretz and ask them to remove hateful adverts from their website:

Haaretz.com editorial department: (972) 3 512 1798
[email protected]

Haaretz.com commercial section: (972) 3 513 1410
[email protected]

Haaretz English Edition, editorial department: (972) 3 512 1751
[email protected]

The battle for the Israeli army's soul

The secular identity and image of the Israeli Army (IDF) is undergoing radical changes in favour of a religion-infused ideology that could threaten not only its relation with the Israeli establishment, but even undermine the outcome of a potential peace process. Yet the State seems severely unprepared to meet the challenge.

Consider, for example, the following few events which occurred over the course of the past month:

The IDF army chief Rabbi quoted a near-millennial religious commentary to conclude that soldiers who show mercy to the enemy will be ‘damned’; orthodox soldiers in active duty displayed banners calling for disobeying orders, during a military oath taking ceremony and encouraged by right-wing rabbis who praised insubordination as a ‘virtue’; and a secret meeting between extremist settler rabbis took place in Jerusalem to discuss means of undermining, via religious arguments, potential military orders to evacuate settlements.

Add to it offers of financial support to soldiers advocating refusal to carry orders, and it becomes clear that the Israeli army, bastion of secularism and defender of the Hebrew state, is at the heart of a powerful struggle between the State’s institutions and the religious-nationalist/settler establishment, which threatens its core foundations and its ability to perform its duties.


Military service is originally compulsory for all Jewish adolescent men and women. Everyone has a child, a niece, a cousin or a friend in active duty. Furthermore, adults remain in active reserve often for decades after they’ve accomplished their service, maintaining their link to the uniform and their army buddies. In effect, the army serves as the national melting pot for Israel. Relationships cast among brothers in arms last a lifetime, and translate into networking opportunities that shape careers.

But in addition to being fully intertwined in the fabric of the society, the IDF is perhaps the final rampart of secularism is a country increasingly coloured by the secular-liberal vs. the religious-nationalist social conflict.

The sources of the conflict between secular and religious in the Israel army are to be found within the foundations of the State. In 1948, (secular) first president of David Ben Gurion granted the small 400-strong ultra-orthodox community exemption from the military service, in favour of religious studies. (The relevance of this regulation today is heavily debated.)

But a conflict was only partially avoided. Young religious scholars who nevertheless wanted to serve in the army found refuge in Hesder yeshivas, special religious schools which cooperate with the army to integrate military service with their Torah curriculum. Yet the number, and influence of hesder yeshivas has steadily grown, to the point of explicitly instructing soldiers to disobey orders pertaining to the interests of the national-religious movement, primarily the evacuation of settlements, exposing themselves to severe accusations of racism and "undermining Israeli sovereignty" by liberal observers.


Worse, the threat to the ‘secularism of arms’ is not just to be found in extremist schools, but from within the army's powerful rabbinate, whose role has evolved in the past few years far beyond catering to the spiritual needs of religious soldiers and ensuring food served is kosher.

Army chief Rabbi Brigadier-General Avichai Rontzki - who’s responsible for the above-mentioned quote on ‘damning’ the troops that will show mercy - is an outspoken advocate for a militant faith-based version of military morality: he has been recruiting hundreds of Rabbis to the rank of officers to be integrated to combat units, disseminating religious propaganda under the guise of "using motivations and understandings gleaned from the Bible and the heritage of Israel to enhance the army's ability to achieve victory”, openly hinting at ‘a holy war’ to soldiers via the distribution of booklets and articles among soldiers.

So much that a senior IDF officer accused him of "of religious brainwashing and, indirectly, also political [brainwashing]".

A resident of an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank, his 2006 appointment was described by the Peace Now movement as “a stinging insult to the rule of law”. He is the head of a Hesder yeshiva in Itamar - one of the West Bank's most extremist settlements.


It is increasingly apparent that the State has little to no idea how to respond to this threat - and time is not on its side. Soldiers are warning that "if we fail to clearly draw the line right now, in a few years we shall find ourselves shifting... to holy wars".
While army chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi stressed that "soldiers answer to one authority only, and that is their commanding officers", the insubordination incidents are nevertheless viewed by analysts as precursors to a mutiny, and described as "just a small taste of what the army and the state can expect if anyone dares to evacuate settlements in a serious fashion."

So far, only half-hearted threats have been made by the Israeli government against those advocating insubordination, with Minister of Defense Ehud Barak shelving threats in favour of reaching “an understanding that would make such steps unnecessary”.

If the army is not to become a toy in the hands of religious-nationalist Rabbis and the pro-settler movement, prompt and more aggressive action will be demanded from the part of the Israeli government, to avoid tipping over into a situation where its authority over its armed forces is challenged by a nucleic religious authority whose long-term goals may not match those of the State or the primarily secular majority.

(note: photos not mine. Caricature is from Haaretz).

Ajami - عجمي - עג'מי - It's the Arab Review of Israeli Cinema!

Make your linguistic pick! :)







“It’s called Ajami. No, not the Ajami in Alexandria - it’s a neigbourhood in Yafa.. ever heard of Yafa? It’s a city, on the Mediterranean. They used to plant oranges there... oranges and lemons”. This is what I answered my younger brother who asked what I was watching.

On the screen, an Israeli Arab guy was telling the other: “Crystal meth. 200 grams. That’s worth 150,000 shekels”.

Yes, Yafa has changed much.



“Ajami” is a brilliant and deservedly much lauded film, which straightforwardly follows the lives of the people who live there. A neighbourhood of Jaffa - Yafa in Arabic - it has become a hotbed for crime, lawlessness, and poverty. Supposedly part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, an Arab character asserts - in Hebrew- that “here in Jaffa, there’s no municipality. The municipality ends there, at your Tel Aviv”.

Those who follow current events will recognize it as the neighbourhood whose poorer Arab inhabitants are being expelled by Israeli developers, with the complicity of the State, to build beachfront properties for Jews.

The backbone of the film is Omar’s story - a 19-year old whose uncle inadvertently causes a major vendetta. عطوة, they call it. Omar is poised to become the next murdered, and his panicked family - himself, his mother, and two younger siblings - seek mediation with the family that wants him dead.

Other storylines, handily split in chapters, add layers of complexity to the film, and deepness to the characters.

Those include Malek, a 16-year old from Nablus who works illegally in a restaurant in Jaffa, trying to earn the money needed for his mother’s surgery.
Dando, the Jewish policeman working the hot zones of Ajami, father of two who struggles to keep his sanity and his family’s, struck by the murder of their younger son.
Then there’s Binge; the Christian Arab, the hip dopehead with a big heart, who wants to move in with his Jewish girlfriend in neighbouring Neve Tsedek.
There’s Omar and Hadeer’s complex love affair - he’s Muslim, she’s Christian, and the boss’ daughter.

The multiplicity of the stories, along with the film’s non-linear timeline, makes it riveting. The actors - who are not professional actors but Ajami natives who got some acting coaching are amazing. (well, all but one. Hadeer sucks.) Scandar Copti, co-director of the film (alongside Yaron Shani) actually plays Binge.

Most of the film is in Arabic - an Arabic sometimes peppered with Hebrew, the way Palestinian Israelis sometimes speak. Segments in Hebrew are more difficult to understand so I had to rely on the ‘pause-check-dictionary-play-pause-check-dictionary’ technique...

There’s also the insights into the lives of Israeli Arabs. The poverty, the relationships, the solidarity proper to a persecuted minority group. The generational gap, the attraction of a western/Israeli lifestyle as opposed to the traditional family structure (for instance, Omar and Hadeer have to go to Tel Aviv to meet freely).

And I did laugh whenever Arabs use profanity in Hebrew. “Shou, dafouk enta?”



Previous installments of ‘The Arab Review of...”: Kalat Hayam, and Srugim.

"And the gathering of the Tweeps he called Tweetup. And God saw that it was cool."

In the memorable (and high-pitched) words of Mr. Barney Stinson, it was.. "Awesome".

Was great to see many of the Tweetup 1.0 people, along with ever more new faces!!
The location was nice - and the room was big enough to allow for movement fluidity. A seated roundtable with 30 people would've simply inconvenient!

So props to the instigator-in-chief, @Sandmonkey, who chose the location and invited the people - I'd have loved to take all the organisational credit for myself but he knows where I live, so, there. :)

Anyways. I had an amazing time and I hope you did too! Looking forward to the next one - let's say end of January / Early February 2010 - free your schedules!
(on a sidenote, yes, it's almost 2010, and no, you're not getting any younger.)


So without further ado, below are some photos. The rest is (or is it 'are'? I never know) HERE.

Cairo Tweetup 2.0, Thursday 3 Dec., Café de Paris, Zamalek. Be there.

يا كايرو!!!

Tweetup 2.0 this week, people! It took us forever - sorry 'bout that. It's not that we've been busy or anything. Just being lazy. You know.

Why? Because you attended last time and loved it. Or you missed it and have been feeling guilty about it ever since.

Where? Café de Paris, Zamalek.
10 Mohamed Thakeb Pacha St. (off El Marashly St.). Zamalek. By the AUC Dorms. You know, the peeps who brought us swine flu - God bless them. Otherwise we'd be worrying about politics, poverty and shit.

To our knowledge, it has no minimum charge. Yes, we care!

When? Thursday, December 3rd! 7 pm, 3ashan el za7ma. You're off the next day. No excuses! (Wael - ditch the wedding. Bring the bridesmaids.)

Suggested topics of discussion: Plans to invade Algeria. Oh, are we through with that topic? Tayeb. How about Dubai crashing and Cairo becoming the next financial capital of the Middle East? (Yes, that was irony.)

Contact us: ehhh... really? =)
@travellerW or by email.)

YALLA PEOPLE! We'll see you on Thursday!!!


PS - yes, Tweetup is a tacky, tacky word and we're sorry. We're open to suggestions for alternative titles that are less بضان.
PPS - as last time - there's another event going on on Saturday 5th. Mr. @ahmednaguib is organising the other one.

How to make an international crisis out of a lousy football game

An ambassador recalled. Another embassy under siege. A level of alert we haven’t seen in years here in Cairo - it’s nothing like the original Football War but if we play our hand right, it’ll be immortalized in a Wikipedia entry of its own titled “Egyptian-Algerian football war of 2009”.

It started in June. No no, strike that - it started in 1989. A frustrated Algerian player attacks an Egyptian doctor with broken glass, blinding one of his eyes. (investigations this year proved that it wasn’t the main suspect but a teammate of his who was guilty).
Probably since then, the tension in Egyptian-Algerian football games became more than a football competition.

Fast-forward to 2009. In June, the first leg of the Egypt-Algeria is played in Blida, Algeria. Algeria wins 3-1. The game ends with no major incident, though the Egyptian players bus is stoned and their hotel surrounded by night by hooligans attempting to make noise to keep them awake.

The run-up to second leg of the game, in Cairo, is far tenser. Egypt gears up for a decisive match but - it feels nothing short of a World Cup final.
Then comes the real turning point of this entire saga: upon arrival to Cairo, the Algerian players’ bus is stoned more heavily; three players are reported injured. Though the injuries are reported ‘light’ by the team’s doctor, the very graphic images coming from that incident both calm down the Egyptians, and inflamates the Algerians.
A 96th minute goal revives Egypt’s chances for a seat in South Africa 2010; a tie-breaker between Egypt and Algeria is to be held in Sudan four days later, Wednesday the 18th.
The aftermath of the game is celebratory in Cairo but takes violent turns in Algeria, further inflamed by the Algerian sensationalist press which reported 1, than 8, then 12 Algerian deaths in Cairo - rumours promptly denied by the Algerian ambassador in Cairo, but the myth - along with mythical stories of alleged Algerians running to the embassy, their clothes torn, clutching an Algerian flag stained with the blood of martyrs... A Greek saga. The Algerian public falls for it head first.
Hooligans attack Egyptian expatriates in Algeria, in their homes and their offices. EgyptAir’s office in Algiers is ransacked and set ablaze. Major Egyptian companies there, primarily “Orascom” and “Arab Contractors”, recall a large segment of their staff out of safety. Baghdad seems safer than Algiers for Egyptians at the moment.

But hell, it’s not over. As fan travel to Sudan for the tie-breaker on Wednesday, Algeria’s government and businesses sponsor plane tickets, slashing the prices from 90,000 dinars to 20,000, then 5,000 dinars. Fans are even shipped in airplanes clearly labeled “Algerian Air Force” - B-130’s, say those in the know. Browse the audience: all male, quite young, and pretty damn angry. Not your usual sports-loving crowd.

The game ends in an Algerian victory. 1-nil.
Sudanese security plans were to hold the supporters of the winning team in the stadium for three hours, while the losers - assumed sore and prone to violent - were evacuated. That did not happen. And while disappointed Egyptians made their way to the airport, they were attacked by mobs of Algerians who stormed out of the stadium - the winning team doing the attacks, yes - with stones, kitchen knives, machetes, and swords. “Swords like that I’ve only seen in the Saladin movie”, said an Egyptian eyewitness, newscaster Wael El-Ebrashy. (you get the picture even if you haven’t see the film, right?)
They bombarded the Egyptian fans’ buses - we’re talking groups of men, women and children - with stones. With the bus windows broken, they attacked them with flagsticks from which nails were poking, they threw knives into the bus. It wasn’t about maximum injury, nor mass murder: it was about causing visible injury.
So far, upwards of 200 Egyptians are reported injured. Some injuries are severe, one woman has lost an eye.

The night of the game was long in Khartoum - and probably longer in Cairo. A frantic media receiving truncated reports and disconnected phone calls from the Sudan grew crazy. The Algerian ambassador was brought out of bed and called live on Egyptian television at 1 AM. At 1:15 AM, the Egyptian President said that if the situation wasn’t brought to order by 2 AM, Egypt would interfere and deploy military aircrafts to evacuate the Egyptians in Khartoum.
Incensed by mad television presenters, Egyptians have, for the past two days, been demonstrating non-stop in front of the Algerian embassy in Cairo - occasionally engaging in fights with the Egyptian anti-riot squads guarding the building and its personnel.
As we speak, attacks and harassment against Egyptians in Algeria are still ongoing.

The diplomatic story is getting murkier by the moment. Between the games, the Egyptian minister of foreign affairs called in the Algerian ambassador to Cairo to express his concern about the safety of Egyptians in Algeria. A diplomatic slap on the wrist.
After the second game in Sudan, the Egyptian ambassador to Algeria was “recalled for consultations” to Cairo. A diplomatic kick in the nuts, for all intents and purposes.

The Algerians are retaliating - first the Algerian ministry calls the Egyptian ambassador to Algiers, to “protest the Egyptian government’s claims that Algeria was unable to protect the Egyptians in Algeria from hooligan violence”. Algeria also decided to hurt Egyptian business interests there - demanding 597 million dollars from Egypt’s Orascom in taxes.

So where from here? I’m just waiting for the first confirmed death, on this side or that. Then it won’t be ‘complain to FIFA’ campaigns anymore, but it’ll be a withdrawal of ambassadors, potentially threats of sending armies to ‘protect our expat nationals’, and then... Well, we have to earn that goddamn Wikipedia entry, no?

Email FIFA to demand punitive actions against Algeria

I called FIFA this morning and they gave this address to email:
[email protected]
They wouldn't give me Blatter's email and phone number, for some reason. :)

Below is the letter I emailed them. Feel free to use it if you wish. You can also use this online form, or mail or fax them:

FIFA
Attn. Mr. Joseph S. Blatter, President
FIFA-Strasse 20,
P.O. Box 8044 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel : +41-(0)43 222 7777,
Fax : +41-(0)43 222 7878.




To Mr. Joseph S. Blatter, President, FIFA.

The behaviour of Algeria's fans, encouraged and sponsored by their governnent cannot, and must not, be tolerated.

While Egypt was preparing for its final World Cup qualifying game in the Sudan on Wednesday, Algeria's fans has other plans altogether. An anti-Egyptian massacre. A pogrom, no less.

Algeria's fans have attacked Egyptians in Sudan with knives and swords they purchased days earlier - establishing beyond the shadow of a doubt the premeditated aspect of the attacks, an aspect further confirmed if put in the context of the Algerian victory in that game. A massacre was in the plans, irrespective of the game's result.

The blood of dozens of Egyptians children, women and men in Sudan has been shed at the hands of Algerian gangs which flew to Khartoum, subsidised by the Algerian government, for the sole purpose of affecting maximum damage on the property, safety and lives of Egyptians, chasing them down the streets of Sudan. Severe injuries are reported and many have been hospitalised, with injuries going from superficial wounds to life-threatening injuries. To this very moment, Egyptians are taking refuge in the houses and stores of the Sudanese population, terrified of the mobs surrounded them, and unable to reach the airport.

Furthermore, the government and private sponsorship of the attacks, which allowed for airplane ticket prices to be slashed from 90,000 Algerian dinars to as low as 5,000 dinars establishes the responsibility and collusion of the Algerian State in those massacres.

In parallel, the Egyptian diaspora in Algeria has been forced to take refuge in their homes since Thursday November 12th. Their houses have been attacked, their offices ransacked. The Algiers office of EgyptAir was set ablaze. Egyptian companies are pulling out their staff from Algeria's provinces. Baghdad, it would seem, is safer for Egyptians than Algiers.

Anything short of the most severe punitive actions will be a grave affront to FIFA and the values of sportsmanship it upholds and defends, and a surrender to the logic of thuggery and terrorism that Algeria has displayed for the past week.

I strongly urge you to cancel the result of Wednesday the 18th, to suspend Algeria's participation in the 2010 World Cup and future competitions until proper compensation, settlement and apology is agreed upon.

Sincerely,
------------.

Reading into our own comments: the story of Yasmine, the Egyptian-Israeli girl

Different media readings of the same story provide us with an uncensored insight into the perception of Egyptians and Israelis of one another

The eyebrow-raising story of Egyptian-Israeli 12-year old Yasmine Nessim-Leibovitch has been the topic of long feature in liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, whose reporter attended the child’s Bat Mitsvah, her Jewish ‘coming of age’ ceremony that was held in her Egyptian’s father’s Sinai resort. Two days later Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, gave a relatively accurate, but shortened rendering of the original Hebrew article, augmented by a short interview with an Egyptian coworker of the father.

It’s a rare occurrence for a human interest story, due to their inherently local nature, to be of interest to people on both sides of the border. It is rarer for it to be presented in such similar terms. For all that, this article, and the readers’ reactions to it, offers a unique, uncensored, and unusually interesting platform for comparison and analysis.

Take the article headline, for instance.

The Israeli version was titled “Yasmine, Jewish-Muslim, celebrates her Bat Mitsvah in the Sinai”. The primary emphasis is on the religious aspect of the young girl’s identity was what struck the writer first.

Interestingly, the Egyptian article put the dual citizenship element before the religion one - twice: the front page summary was given the title "Yasmine: I am half-Egyptian and half-Israeli... Jewish and Muslim... I speak Arabic with father and Hebrew with my mother”. Inside, the main article headlines “Yasmine, product of the marriage of an Egyptian and an Israeli, officially embraces Judaism on the land of the Sinai”.

It is no coincidence.

Israel is primarily thought of in geopolitical terms; memories of wars with Israel remain very vivid in the Egyptian collective memory, by nature or by design - commemorations of the 6^th of October 1973 Arab-Israeli war never fail to dwarf those of the national holiday on July 23^rd, in no small part because president Mubarak took part in the former. Israel’s war on Arab populations, with the IDF amounting to its main international spokesperson, is a continuous reminder.

Egypt has traditionally viewed Jews as a religious community as opposed to a national one - unsurprising given the centuries of religious peaceful cohabitation in Cairo, Alexandria and its other major urban centres. Interreligious marriages were never a rare occurrence, and I have recently had the opportunity to meet Egyptian women and men, offspring of such relations, who are practicing Muslims but partaking in cultural Jewish holiday celebrations in Egypt.

All that fuss for that little girl's 12th birthday?

On the other hand, the Israeli self-definition in terms of Jews as opposed to Arabs or Muslims greatly influences the choice of words in the article, and indeed the interaction of Israelis with their neighbours. To step for an instant into politics, the official insistence of the Israeli administration to be recognized by Palestine as a “Jewish” state is symptomatic of this reduced self-image; more critically, Israel’s ironclad differentiation of its own population as Jews and Arabs permeates its perception of itself vis-à-vis its own national communities, and projects its own perception of international relations into an ethnic dimension in which Arab countries, Egypt included, cannot or will not step into.

The tone of the article is also overall noticeably different. Gideon Levy, for Haaretz, is near caricaturally gushing as he tells his story, noting the pretty “melting pot” that is the family photo and seeing the presence of former soldiers on both sides as a man-sized metaphor for peace. Mohammad Abboud for Al-Masry Al-Youm, appears somewhat incredulous and judgmental - mainly of Egyptian dad Hisham Nessim. He describes the mixed attendance as ‘surprising’, and while Levy describes with effusion the ex-military men on both sides who have come to celebrate a child’s life, Abboud marks this occurrence with an exclamation mark.

The family is obviously secular - Yasmine attends a secular Waldorf school - and so was the celebration.

But the concept of “secular Judaism” however remains naturally foreign to the Arab readership -Judaism being primarily defined to them as a religious identity, and secular Judaism a recent and mainly Ashkenazi phenomenon. Although it describes what a secular Bat Mitsvah is like, I believe it is without malice that the Egyptian article referred to the ceremony as “her christening to the Jewish faith”. This important differentiation has however set the tone for a large number of the readers’ comments.

Some comments were neutral, some congratulatory. Past those however, we can identify general trends highlighting the points of discord of both readerships.

Al-Masry Al-Youm readers pointed, in severe terms, to the question of Egyptian-Israeli marriages. With several thousands Egyptians residing in Israel and marrying locals - Arabs and Jewish - the Egyptian public opinion has taken habit in regularly imputing them with treason charges; something readers have not omitted doing, by referring to Yasmine and her father as a “national security threat” or a "fifth column".

The other question regarded Yasmine’s religious identity. Religion being patrilineal in the Muslim faith, commentators deplored or condemned Yasmine’s confirmation as Jew - but more importantly, her father’s participation in a ceremony many readers viewed as a moral and religious outrage.

Many Israeli readers were indignant vis-à-vis the mother, Vered Leibovitch’s “assimilation” - codeword for “marrying a non-Jew”, which has recently been the subject of recent media campaigns and deemed a threat to Jewish continuity. A treason.

Young Yasmine has not been spared the vitriol either, with Hebrew-written accusations of being a ‘self-hater’ and a ‘Jewish girl in captivity’, primarily because the girl declared her wish to live in Egypt when she grows up. This did little to gain her favour in the eyes of the Egyptian readers, who, sadly enough, lamented the thought that she would one day integrate in the Egyptian society and 'marry a local, or become a first lady'.

Readers on both sides have primarily been critical of their own fellow-country(wo)man, displaying a nationalistic reflex vis-à-vis what they considered a treason of allegiance. That the spouse was generally spared is no reason to rejoice, for the “other” remains by default untrustworthy.

The dissimilate identification, on citizenship vs. ethnicity, highlights where the different fault lines are. In a sense, angry commentators have done this debate, indirect as it may be, a good favour.

My police escorts!

Egyptian police, Taba-Cairo road: our minibus driver told the police we had ‘two Israelis’ on board; the police assigned us protection. The thing is, they were Israelis citizens... Khaled and Ahmed. But we were nevertheless flanked by a number of consecutive police cars, waiting endlessly at the end of each station's jurisdiction while the following station sent their escort.



Palestinian police, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestine: Presidential Guard, s’il vous plait, escorted the group of US university students touring the West Bank, last year.



Israeli army, northern West Bank, Palestine: the Palestine Investment Conference had presidential-level coordination, and we benefited from Israeli army 'protection' - and their help to cut through the insanely long checkpoints... that they themselves set up. Ironic, huh?

Male orders hymen!

My article describing how I bought an artificial hymen (a photo of which I've posted in the previous post below) and my commentary on the subject has been published by the Guardian:

"As a member of the XY tribe, evolution has spared me of one anatomically useless little membrane; and of course, my virginity, as a male, is of little interest to society. For women, however, it is frequently a very different matter.

Recently, news of a $15 Chinese-made artificial hymen sent ripples across the Egyptian media and blogosphere. China has been manufacturing this very same product for years, but it was an advertisement for a Chinese company offering shipping into the Middle East that started the discussion here in Cairo. ............................"

Please go read the article and come back here for comments and discussion!

Update:

So the article has been pretty well received on CiF - it's in the 'most commented' selection (right),

Made it up to Yahoo! Buzz,

And even generated an article that, well, described my article.

But the coolest bit is - someone made my conclusion into a pretty quote:

It's very weird to read yourself quoted, I tell ya'. Weird but very flattering!

Behold: the artificial hymen

This is it. The ubiquitous artificial 'made in China' hymen.

(and yes, this photo was taken in Cairo.)


Story will follow shortly...

If this is why you're making children - don't.

Friends who have, or are actively trying to have children will have to forgive me. I'm sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Most people, however, aren't.


We are supposed to be highly evolved creatures. We can envision the future. We know we're not doing it for the survival of the race. And it isn't a sexual impulse being fulfilled, we know how to control this - this, and birth control.
Could it be because our species still abides by a maternal/paternal (to a lesser extent) impulse?

Not all. It makes no logical sense.

The fact that it's a (near-)religious edict, to marry and make children and so on - سنة الحياة and the like - is only proof that there's something inherently illogical in the act of generating offspring: humanity needs all the encouragement - including the heavenly kind - to take the leap.

Why do people make children?

Picturing the happy months of pregnancy, and the adorable little thing subsequently produced can only be a partial explanation. Yes, you will have a beautiful baby that you will love unconditionally and that will drive you crazy but you'll still be looking forward to it. Yes, it will be absolutely amazing the first time your baby holds your finger.

But picturing the lifelong emotional roller-coaster, thinking forward to when your child is 15, full of pimples, dyes her hair in blue and declares she hates you every other hour - should be a good enough antidote to the mental image of rosy cheeks.

There must be more complex explanations. I can think of two. And neither, I'm afraid, is flattering.

We all seek to live fulfilling lives. Most try to do so through their careers.
In reality, few succeed.
A complementary source of gratification therefore comes from having children: after all, it's easy to do and is celebrated as a grand achievement!

Otherwise, why would the line "I knew my life had a purpose the minute I first held you in my hands" be such a recurrent one in father-and-son television scenes?

Precisely because the average person's life is unfulfilling, purposeless. The need to find a 'purpose' seemingly compels them to, well, generate little versions of themselves. Having children, in itself, gives them a sense of purpose, because you realise that society gives you the challenge of doing a good job raising this child which you engendered.
It's your retribution to society. You brought it here, you bring it up.

The following reason is related to the first:
The need to feel useful. Again, we love being depended upon. The go-to guy. Of course most people do it by achieving a certain level of professional expertise.

Failing this, some people will, once again, make a child. A tiny human being, so fully dependent on them for every little thing should be sufficient to provide a feeling self-worth, of usefulness.

Both reasons are not a good enough justification of having a child. Unfortunately, they probably account for more than a few


Who knows: I might have some of my own one of these days. Perhaps I'll be doing it for the right reasons, and perhaps I won't. I'll let you know.

Nobel's thirst for publicity gave Obama the prize

Barack Obama does not deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. and I believe the Prize committee, deep down, would agree. Then why did they award it him?

Before I address why I believe they chose BO, let me get this out of the way: Obama's record in "world peace" is not shallow - it's abysmal.

Guantanamo is not closed. Iraq is still a mess. More troops are being sent to Afghanistan, not less. US soldiers involved in torture are not being tried.
And don't get me started on his ridiculous, ridiculous attempt at half-assedly addressing the Middle East quagmire, which ended in the Israelis absolutely riding his ass.

Only last week, Saturday Night Live - which cannot be accused of being pro-Republican! - ran an opening skit on Obama's (lack of) achievement, concluding that he did have two accomplishments; they named, Jack, and Squat.





Of course, he's been getting the right amount of criticism and mockery. But never mind all that.

I'm ashamed for the Nobel Peace prize committee.

The small, 5-member committee of Norwegians has been obsessed with publicity, and since few around the world know of the leading figures in the medical or economic realms, and few care about breakthroughs in physics and chemistry - the Peace prize is where they can make headlines.

In the past 10 years, save for Wangari Maathai, their laureates have been high profile, famous personnalities and organisations. Yet they were generally worthy, though. After the utterly ridiculous choice of Al Gore in 07, last year's prize, which went to Martti Ahtisaari, seemed to reflect a return of the Nobel committee to their right mind: the man's work for peace, over four continents and for three decades, was rightfully rewarded.

In a NYTimes interview,the committee's chairman is quoted saying the following:
“It’s important for the committee to recognize people who are struggling and idealistic, but we cannot do that every year."

Yes, we can. (hihihihi). A major virtue of the Prize is that it rewards those who selflessly serve mankind, sometimes putting their own lives on the line.

Because if we're going to "go into the realm of realpolitik", by which he means 'select the rich and famous', then we should award the Nobel prize in Medicine to the hunky doctor on Oprah, and the Litterature prize for Dan Brown.

And if, as another member of the committee said, the "prize could be seen as an early vote of confidence", then I believe that a Nobel price in Economics for a PhD student who's blogging instead of researching. (hint, hint?)

The Cairo Tweetup - Photos!

If you weren't there, then you should know: you really missed something and you ought to feel bad about it. :)

Good coffee, old friends, new friends, amazing people, interesting conversation.
A great inaugural event for what should be made into a regular one!

See you guys...
Next month? I'm thinking, end of October/early November!

Below are some photos from yesterday's gathering.

The "Hala Mustafa" case uncovers the hypocrisy of the Egyptian media establishment

Here's how the story goes: Hala Mustafa, long time journalist and editor-in-chief of the 'Democracy' review issued by Al-Ahram - the chief government mouthpiece - meets with the Israeli ambassador, Shalom Cohen (can his name be any more caricaturally Israeli?:) for a routine discussion - about organising a panel discussion with Egyptian and Israeli academics, on the peace process or what have you. A routine, organisational meeting.

Later that day, a newspaper from the same publishing house publishes with sensationalist tones that this meeting took place - great reporting really, their reporter probably just bumped into the man in the restroom - presenting it as a treason of sort. 'Normalization', of course, is the big stinky accusation.

Since then - that was a couple of weeks ago - the question has galvanised the media and angered the public, offering Hala Mustafa as the scapegoat for popular anger. She's been defending herself quite valiantly, though, to the grief of many of her detractors who were expecting an apology/resignation/etc.

There have been calls to suspend her, and expel her from the powerful Egyptian Journalists Syndicate; the Syndicate is actually referring her to its ethics committee. Her hearing is today, Tuesday the 29th.



My analysis of the situation goes through putting together those few facts. Walk with me, if you will:


- It is not the first such meeting. As a matter of fact, even the hypocrite-in-chief editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram, Abdel-Menem Said, has met the same ambassador, as well as his predecessor, several times in his Al-Ahram office.

- It was anything but a secret meeting: planned several days in advance, building secured as is the case with high-profile visits, etc. There was really no whistle to blow.

- The meeting was actually organised via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Which means that, if some are claiming that Al-Ahram is an independent organisation - which it is anything but - the State is very much involved in the meeting.

- Hala Mustafa has been at odds with other journalists before. Vehemently. See the final few lines of this article from Al-Masry El Youm, 26 December 2008:
"Hala strongly criticized the Egyptian mass-media, as she underlined the need for a revision after the establishment of numerous private newspapers and channels, which have gone far beyond reasonable limits of ethics and morals in many practices, political or otherwise".

- Confirming the above impression, notice that the report was first filed in Al-Ahram al Masa2y (Al Ahram Evening edition). As Hala Mustafa said in a television interview a few days ago, "there's a bit of professional courtesy, at least within the same organisation" that ought to prevent such a backstab. The Masa2y person must have been holding quite a grudge.

- Despite being an active member of the National Democratic Party - and being a member of the 'Policies committee', inner-sanctum of the party, under Gamal Mubarak's direct supervision - She's also had issues with the NDP, quitting a some point, before making amends and joining again. Amends or not, there's always remaining bad blood.

- Her boss, Abdel Menem Said, who is supposed be a member of various peace and coexistence organisations - Copenhagen group, etc. - has refused to meet her for the past year. Talk about a great work environment.

- With Farouk Hosni's dismal's failure at the UNESCO elections, the 'Jewish cabal' is being blamed for lobbying against him (it's obviously anyone's fault but his own). Anything or anyone that is remotely connected to them will therefore be used a catharsis for official, media, and influencable popular rage.


My conclusion? It's a massive exercice in score settling, of scapegoating, where an intelligent, professional woman is lynched to settle personal scores, and where disingenuous journalists can push up the bid of nationalism and anti-Israelism, individually or collectively.
It doesn't cost much to kick someone who's already floored.

More importantly, the journalistic mob did not measure the extent of the popular outrage they could generate. Fascinating story, both for what it uncovers about the journalistic profession in Egypt, but for the reactions it generated. Definitely worth a closer look.

I plan to follow up with a second post on thoughts regarding 'normalisation' in Egypt. Until then, check out this post I wrote a few months ago, at the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement.


I stand unequivocally with Dr. Hala Mustafa, both because she's a victim of a dishonest campaign, but more importantly because she has opinions of her own - and does not bend under pressure.

*CHANGE OF LOCATION! * Yes. It's happening. And you want to be there. Cairo Tweetup, Wed. 30 Sept, 8PM, @ Le Grillon

Time: Wednesday September 30th, 8 pm. (and that doesn't mean "come fashionably late at 10 pm". If you do come at 10 pm we'll still be there but you'd have missed 2 awesome hours. Tab 3ala eih? :)

Location has changed!: Le Grillon. Why? Because it's so downtown-kitschy, it had to be there. Used to be a hangout for famous Egyptian leftists and intellectuals. We'll be at the 'garden'.

☛ 8 Qasr El Nil St., off Talaat Harb Square, right next to the Qasr El Nil theatre. There's a big sign on the street (a large red one, I believe), so you Downtown, Cairo.

(we had to change from Cafe Riche - sorry 'bout that - because apparently an entire aisle of the place is out of service, so a large group at the bar would've been too much for them to handle.)

What to expect: Friendly people who are as keen as you on meeting the interesting folks behind the 140-characters-or-less. And Cairo being a village, you'll probably recognise a few faces too.

Suggested topics of discussion may include current events, the new season of Gossip Girl, and the Americano-Zionisto-Bloggero-conspiracy on Farouk Hosni. Obviously.
Talking about the weather and mosalsalat Ramadan is discouraged. El ra7ma 7elwa.

How many people we are expecting: Given that it's the first even of its kind, and knowing that many people have already confirmed they're coming, we estimate the attendance to... hmm... we don't have the slightest freaking idea.

Yep, sounds about right.

And that's part of the fun! This said, you are STRONGLY encouraged to let us know whether you're (probably) coming (by leaving a comment, email, or on twitter), just so we can get a rough estimate of whether Cafe Riche will be adequate (or whether we need to relocate to the Cairo stadium or something.)


What to bring: Yourself, other Twitterers who are ambivalent about coming :) and money for your drinks. We love you and all but no open bar this time.

و الحاضر يعلم الغايب!! Yalla!

Cairo, we'll see you in a few days.

Qaddhafi out of luck, from the UN to Wikipedia

Poor Muammar El-Qaddhafi.

Not only has he been forbidden from erecting his tent in New York - twice, first because of stupid locals then because of petty officials looking for their minute of fame - but apparently not everyone liked his speech to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.

Why wouldn't they really? He only exceeded the 15-minute limit on speeches by a mere... oh, 81 minutes?

Having been introduced by his Minister of Foreign Affairs who happens to chair UNGA this month, he must've thought he was addressing his own docile population, which is rather coerced to listen and clap to anything he says...

Qaddhafi spoke for a full ninety-six minutes, during which he asked for inquiry in the Kennedy assassination, called for the establishment of Isratine, and asked for 7.77 trillion dollars in compensations for the colonisation of Africa.

But I don't what was it that ticked an anonymous user to edit his Wikipedia page, changing the Libyan leader's name in Arabic from "Muammar Al-Qaddhafi معمر القذافـي" to "DOG كلب".
Petty, but oh so ridiculous!

Someone corrected it promptly of course, but your favourite blog has a screen shot of the before and after the edit:

He did say ONE interesting thing. His (very clumsily formulated) remarks on the relationship between the GA and the SC. I also happen to agree this relationship to be totally dysfunctional - in a word, the UNGA, with its one-country one-vote system, is as close to a global democracy as we're going to get; UNSC, with its restricted membership and veto powers, is its antithesis.
As such, a necessary item in the reform of the UN will be to redefine this institutional relationship.

But when he called to rename the Security Council as "Terror Council", Qaddhafi didn't help much.

(HT: @TaraLSF)

Meet your fellow twitterers - It's the Cairo Tweetup!

Update 2: We have a date and location!
It's tentative though, so your thoughts and feedback are very much welcome!

--> Wednesday 30 September, around 7 or 8 pm, at Cafe Riche, downtown Cairo. We love this location - so historic, so complex, so... Cairo! - and, if you don't know it already, we hope you will too.


Update 1: Apparently some people are attempting to put together a parallel event and don't seem willing to discuss a merger of both events - eh. C'est la vie. :) We're still trying though. We'll keep you posted as to how things work out.

---------------


Cairo-based twitterers -

You follow their tweets, you have long (well, 140-characters-based) conversations about politics, arts, or bashing Ahmed El Fishawi.

They're your favourite commentators, journalists, or opinionated buttheads.

Actually, they're the friends you've never met.

How about actually meeting them?


In comes the Cairo Tweetup! Come over, and meet other Cairo-based twitterers over a drink somewhere.
How does that sound?

Where: I'm thinking in a laid-back coffee shop somewhere. Or perhaps at a park - say, Azhar park? - if we decide on a day tweetup.

When: Sometime in the next couple of weeks.

What do you think? Let me know!! Leave a comment, email me, or obviously, Tweet me @TravellerW!

Let's make this happen, people!!!

Egypt's TWO middle classes

I often joke that Egypt is one of the very few countries where you may see, at a busy traffic light, a Porsche Cayenne angrily honking at a donkey cart that stubbornly won’t budge.
Yet my story isn’t about the driver of the Porsche, nor of the donkey cart: it’s about all those in between.

Much ink has been spilt depicting the erosion of Egypt’s middle class. While the poverty statistics are indeed increasing, with recent numbers putting 40% of the Egyptian society below the poverty line, this ‘erosion’ is impossible by construct - there will always be, by design, a “middle class”.

Egypt doesn’t have one - it has two. I postulate that there are two parallel ‘middle classes’, that meet at times, with unclear boundaries and a reasonably crowded seam, but overall maintain distinct lives, activities, jobs, social lives and street hangouts.

The middle class is usually considered to be the productive motor of growth in a society.
In Egypt however, only half of that middle class is productive, integrated in the world economy, a necessary step in the transformation of the economy.

The socio-economic continuum is broken. To be more precise, the economic continuum is broken on social distinctions.

In case I didn't make sense in text, perhaps the graph makes it a little clearer?

Class, family background and prestige, social demeanor, socio-professional categories (that is, jobs), and even foreign languages; all contribute to drawing the social chasm.

Individual, but also cross-generational inertia, is a large part of it. Despite the convergence of incomes, inherited social order remains strong. In what I believe to be typical Arab fashion, who you are - to others, especially - is in no negligible part defined by what your parents do and are. ‘Ebn nas’ (‘son of good people’, roughly) is a simple but potent popular euphemism for what we will call “Sub-class A”. The other group will be “Sub-class B”.

You know which group we both belong to, right?

Interestingly, their perception of each other is primarily, and erroneously viewed through an economic lens: those are considered poorer, those are viewed as richer, and that’s enough to explain the differences. That incomes are roughly similar, that they both complain equally of inflation, that they are, too, a middle class - is a scenario neither group has considered, and they choose to generally ignore each other’s existence.

Let me put it up-front: perhaps one sub-class may indeed be marginally wealthier than the other. Don't take that for granted: after all, as I argued in a older post, that a large part of the money on the Egyptian market today came from the 'blue collar' underclass.

Either way, the difference cannot be fully explained by finances. The behavioural leap and lifestyle difference cannot be explained by a raise - proof is, most people from either class who experience and income shock (upwards or downwards) will maintain most of their lifestyle determinants, following a ‘more (or less) of the same’ rather than ‘as much of something else’.

How different are they?

They will meet sometimes. Because they both take public transportation. Because they both vacation inside Egypt rather than abroad, they both go to the same cinemas.

But they won’t watch the same films. Those will watch the Dustin Hoffman film, these the latest Heneidy flick.
Some will vacation in Alexandria, Hurghada or perhaps even Aswan - the others will consider the Sinai, the Oases, and of course Sharm. And they won't be buying in the same North coast villages either.

Their jobs, too, are often different.

Sub-category B will include blue collar professions. I know for a fact that my plumber or mechanic make more money than I do; but as an marketing exec for a frozen meats company told me, ‘in Cairo, the job category often takes precedence over income category’ - as such, I would be targeted by his advertisement campaign, but my plumber wouldn’t.
Middle and upper government officials, as well as the military and police higher ranks, could be in this category, despite their relatively good salaries.

Sub-category A will include most freelance and independent professionals - engineers, doctors, etc - as well as professors, journalists, etc. Few public sector workers overall here.

They send their children to different schools; one sub-class - let’s call it sub-class A - heavily favours private, though not too onerous schools with a partial or full curriculum in a foreign language, generally English and sometimes French or German. For the second group, different schools, probably still private, may be favoured.

Those kids will go to different places to play. Though driving the same cars, Group A will probably drop their kids in the social clubs they have inherited membership in (but couldn’t afford it on their own today) - Heliopolis, Gezeera, etc; while Group B might drop their children at the neighbourhood club, the mosque/church club, or to a cheaper private club they bought membership in - says, El-Shams.

They will probably both go to state university - but again, Group A is more likely to join the English department (if there is one), a little more expensive and guaranteeing a notch of selectivity.

They might both hold their weddings in the same hotels, or perhaps in the same Airforce club ballroom; the continuum break will only be more visible, as Extended Family A will include some elements of the higher classes, while Extended Family B of the lower ones.

While looking to invest in real estate, Group A’s kids will opt for a flat in El-Rehab, Madinati, and such other new sanitized neighbourhoods; Group B’s might tend to buy in a place like the 6th of October or in El-Obour - or buy the apartment their parents have rented for the past 30 years.

And so on.

Future prospects

Adherence to either of those sub-classes greatly determines the chances of social mobility. If you belong to class A, your chances or moving upwards are greater than if you belonged to class B; and you’d be less likely to fall in poverty than the latter.

More importantly, if starting from class B, an income increase won’t take you to class A - since you started being roughly their equal - and it won’t take you to the upper class, which is not on your segment of the continuum. Rather, you’ll still be in class B - only with a higher income. You may be an economic class above, but not a social one.


Not convinced yet? Here’s an extra exercise for you.

As you watch television, notice the advertisements (and with the Ramadan scheduling, you get on average 20 minutes per hour of ads - time it!) you’ll realise that a large part, if not most of those ads cater exclusively to one of the middle classes.

‘Madinati’ selling its 150,000 USD condos. A new private college in the suburbs of Cairo. Goldi's new 32'' flat screen. And so on.

Financial differentiation, you say? I beg to differ. Let’s look at cheap consumer goods too: even those adverts are geared towards the same sub-class. Coca-Cola ads I watched this week (the ones featuring Karim Abdel-Aziz) take place in a magnificent beachfront villa garden which is largely above the means of most Egyptians (and everyone they know).
The ultra-slick lobby of the bank advertising its credit cards isn’t the bank Group B gets its salary transferred to (assuming their workplace actually offers bank transfers).

And those two fancily dressed kids playing football mess up an ultra-modern kitchen which is then cleaned by their slim and fair-skinned mother, in an advert for a detergent.

All this is a far cry from the life of most Egyptians. To be more precise, it neither represents what group B lives, nor aspires to; for group A, it probably looks vaguely like the house of their rich uncle (but one they’ll probably never own themselves).

As long as we keep ignoring group B, as an important and potentially productive segment of society, we’re marginalizing a huge societal asset, for no good reason.

What we need is a national, inter-class reconciliation process, where both segments acknowledge each other and maybe, just maybe, start considering one-another for their individual worth rather than through a strict social order.

Angel sighting in Barcelona

The Angel had a fight with her boyfriend, apparently regarding the baby in the stroller.
It sounded like Czech. Do they speak Czech in heaven?

The argument ended with the boyfriend taking the baby and leaving the stroller.

An Angel with an empty stroller.



She sighed, and sat down to finish putting on her make-up. She does most of it at home, saving only the final touches for when she comes to work.

‘Work’ is that same place, night after night, on the sidewalk of a street choke-full of tourists in Barcelona. 'Work' begins around 10 pm or so, and ends when her feet beg for a break.

As she notices me, she winks with her long, golden eyelashes. I smile back.


Like a majestic butterfly in the making - a butterfly in a white-and-gold dress, she dons her wings.

No easy task, either. The straps are a little too tight.

But she does not fly. Instead, she takes off her green flip-flops, and stands on her pedestal that once was a fruit crate.

Her transformation is now complete. She smiles warmly at a little girl that stops in admiration.

I leave a euro in her plastic bucket, to thank her for indulging with my observation. She smiles and waves for me to come closer.

She offers me a piece of crystal, which turns into a vulgar piece of plastic as soon as it lands in my hand.

Apologies for the low-quality photos.. I need a new camera!

Jean-Sélim Kanaan, Hero. 1970-2003

I bought his book on the sixth anniversary of his death, a couple of weeks ago.
I read it last night, sipping a cappuccino at the Madrid airport. Quite a suhur (breakfast), I tell you.

It’s simple, naively written, and probably heavily edited. A couple of hours is all it takes to get through it.

And I probably wouldn’t have read it if it weren’t for its unique context. To me, at least, it is unique.

See the author is Egyptian-French, went to a French grande école, then to Harvard. Oh, and he worked for the UN. He speaks a bunch of languages and has lived all over the globe.

I know.

Jean-Sélim Kanaan was killed, among many others, on August 19th 2003, when a terrorist drove a truck-bomb into the United Nations building in Baghdad, in what was known as the Canal hotel bombing. He was 33, and he hadn’t met his three weeks-old son yet.

His book, “ma guerre à l’indifférence” he wrote in 2002 during his brief time in New York, working for UNOPS at headquarters (as a P-4 at age 31, by the way. Damn). A tale of his decade on the field and a critique of humanitarian work as it currently occurs.
He was obviously itching to head back to the field. The rest of the story we know.

I knew of him because of the bombing, but was captivated by his life after watching Génération ONU, a documentary on young UN officials in the field which featured Jean-Sélim.

Heavily committed to the mission of the UN, good looking, witty and with a good sense of humour, a bit of a poster boy for UN humanitarian missions. With a career on the rise, he seemed to be what many of us aspire to achieve.

And now, he’s dead. Absurd, isn’t it.

Yet despite his life being cut short, I will always remember that he had achieved what few ever succeed in reaching: to be remembered, for what he had done, not for what happened to him.

Jean-Sélim was, and will remain an inspiration.