Frantic, Frustrated, Perturbed, His soul yearns for peace, for stability, A world enshrouded in tumult, Enthralling the compass of his soul Steadily steering the helm of his ship, To desolate islands, Degradation, Shipwrecked at its squalid shores, Laden with tattered bones, And hopes, Remnants of his sons and daughters, My fate for treading these lifeless waters, Seas of infinite, tears and agony, Submerging me beneath my breaths, The muffled cries of despair, Tear after Tear, Bereft of hope, The water is still, Lifeless, Too late to say Forgive me, Forgive me...
Our pens oft bleed our souls tears on tattered parchment Embalming our fleeting anguish to vent even the flux of time, The fragrance of her heart still so lingers, beneath the quiet breaths of my soul-I often see her whispers kneading the tempered clay of my affection, Enchanting the passion as it drums within me, Oh don't tempt me with love, No, It is not easily dispensable And once appropriated, not easily dispensed with No, Don't decorate your thoughts with hope, Life does not shy in teaching its morbid message, Nor does this wretched world scruple as it fans our folly We are mortals and time will inform us of this, Let us not imagine of life what will come only in passing, Time shouldn't entertain itself with your pretenses, How can I begin to offer that which I've yet to possess Nor does fantasy beget reality... No, Don't decorate your thoughts with sordid hope, Instead lather them with at least piecemeal affection It is this that fathers love, And steals the rhapsody of Our hearts...
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.
Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?
Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11. "We disrupted al-Qa'ida, causing them to run," Colonel David Sutherland said of the preposterously code-named "Operation Lightning Hammer" in Iraq's Diyala province. "Their fear of facing our forces proves the terrorists know there is no safe haven for them." And more of the same, all of it untrue.
Within hours, al-Qa'ida attacked Baquba in battalion strength and slaughtered all the local sheikhs who had thrown in their hand with the Americans. It reminds me of Vietnam, the war which George Bush watched from the skies over Texas – which may account for why he this week mixed up the end of the Vietnam war with the genocide in a different country called Cambodia, whose population was eventually rescued by the same Vietnamese whom Mr Bush's more courageous colleagues had been fighting all along.
But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".
Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard "explosions" in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let's claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA's list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.
But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.
Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.
This is something a friend shared with me sometime ago :) Thought i should share it -- its really charged with emotion and passion -- how is it we, rather i, get inured to other people's suffering? Palestine, Darfur..the list goes on...if only we, rather i, weren't so self-absorbed, sigh...
Let all cease, for no longer can I see Through the wayward world I gaze For not all is to be seen Agog, yearning, beyond the haze Fixating, my heart's eyes On The Radiant The light that pervades, For all else isn't. Only darkness Hues of recycled existence Fluttering As the hourglass passes, As everything evanescences Fading into the light The Radiance, I can't help but see Let all cease.
Hey all - many apologies for the lack of posts, i know your missin the words but i've gone through a hell of a lot lately, and alhamduillah things are settling, back in O-town Kanada-- i'm not comfortable divulging everything online, but what is relevant to this blog is that a series of events led to my luggage being lost or stolen (they both sort of overlap in my situation) and as a result i've lost a lot of my work--alot of writings that i had written and some research... It's beyond annoying and frustrating to loose what you've poured your heart into but then what can be said or what would give solace except that All praise is to God, for creating this world, the good of it and the bad, what 'he' gives and what 'he' takes, and ultimately for giving us a chance to deserve (if we can ever really deserve it) the ultimate experience of existence creation could ever hope for. :) Everything is a reminder of the path one must tread, the only path to progression -- for all else is still and lifeless.
That said, i've recovered some of my recent writings that i haven't posted, so stay tuned.
He hopes big things from Allah and small things from men but he gives to man (such consideration as) he does not give to Allah. What is the matter with Allah, glorified be His praise? He is accorded less (consideration) than what is given to His creatures. Do you ever fear to be false in your hope in Allah? Or do you not regard Him the centre of your hope?
Similarly, if a man fears man he gives him (such consideration) out of his fear which he does not give to Allah. Thus, he has made his fear for men ready currency while his fear from the Creator is mere deferment or promise. This is the case of every one in whose eye this world appears big (and important) and in whose heart its position is great. He prefers it over Allah, so he inclines towards it, and becomes its devotee.
-Sermon 158 Nahj al-Balaqah (The Peak of Eloquence)
I'm writing to you. So listen. You know the way, you've known for quite sometime. Forget the others, they will remember themselves or else forget, your duty is to remember. Tomorrow is approaching and today has already left. Procrastination and lethargy equate to a craven form of cowardice toward life and its inborn difficulties. Struggle. Sacrifice. To truly live is not to succumb to folly, to drag along the measured timeline of one's life, a sloth tottering from millimeter to lifetime, till he like all things before him timely returns to his source.
"We are God's and to Him We Return"
Listen, if your ears are still capable. Do not become a burden to the Advisors as Jesus (p) says: "How long will you be advised without taking any advice? Certainly you have become a burden to the advisors." (Adab al-nafs, vol.1, 175)
Listen, to the inner divining of your soul, its aspirations, its desires, its vision for comfort. If you must let up, then do so, give it what it truly desires. If its power and greatness that it seeks, then know that will be granted to tomorrow, to the meek today. If it is wealth and opulence, then know it will be granted tomorrow, to those who gave it away today. If it is comfort and pleasure, then know that, it will be granted tomorrow, for those who regulated it today.
You want it tomorrow but you won't work for it today. You want it today, but it won't be there tomorrow.
Oh how easy it is to rebel.How so free man feels. The Master who set his slave free, now nothing but a slave who set his master free! Shackled to the reigns of his ego,a prisoner of his very will,fleeing from his Master to his master;a slave yet to understand the value of his freedom.
There are far too many battles to fight, and those who don't recognize the war have already been defeated, and those still fighting have already won. Keep fighting. Live it right.
Just when you thought it was over, lol, more pics, we went on a surprise trip to halab and Raqqah (pronounced ra'aa in syrian, thought you might want to know, knowledge is power…ooh digression digression…. -- yeah wasn't much of a surprise really -- but I found out at the last second so after pullin a couple of strings got to go, alhamduilalh…was an experience, one I really thank God for. Just a day or two earlier I had my second, third molar taken out! PAAAAIN, I've never felt but this time it was much better then the first time, so I decided to go despite the pain (yes, I'm very proud of my strength and bravery as well :P )--- I reiterate it was awesooome…two day trip! It takes about 4-5hrs to halab and then another 3-4 to Raqqah, give or take an hour. Speaking of raqqah, my Grandfather from my mothers side is married to a syrian from raqqah, his fifth wife, but whose coutin…haha
Anyway, I'll comment on the trip through the pictures…
enjoooy getting nauseous from all the pics? gonna try this Picasa mikasaa shukasa web albums things
Salaaams…more pictures :P this time from Homs, one of Syria's popular cities -- a very good friend of mine, is joining the notorious Syrian Army (one of the most powerful in the world, no exaggeration..really :P) yeah, so he invited me over to his village called 'al-qhur al-qarbiya' a village at the outskirts of what used to be old roman fortress/castle. It was soooo beautiful and refreshing, a long ways from the desert like weather of Damascus…. It luscious green pastures, not to mention its pure and unsullied air, arg…beautiful, especially since I've been living in the city for soo long, and the city is anything but green and luscious, and don't even get me started about the air.
lol hussien is a blackbelt in Karate, Homs is Syria's Karate capital they say, with most of its fighters winning championships..heh, so you can guess how we became good friends, lol wer'e both martial art freaks lol, so we naturally had quite a few sparing matches :P
So without further ado :P
like to start off with the worlds most prized animal...the sacred hemaar yup, sooo many of donkeys, i had to take pictures... lol, this is Ahmed Kazim and Hussien.... my karate friend is the guy with the black jacket :) bigfoot in syria...just when you thought it wasn't possible :P
the marvelous olive treee... now i know i've seen this somewhere, zainab (hussiens little sis) .... yeah its nabi' Jesus's famous stance :P lol u know some peeps think he was black :P haha (no i'm not one of em) this is a sort of remix.. more scenic pics.. more donkeys... we're on top of the old castle ruins... group pic.... just another hemar! now this is just mesmerising,...its gotta be the coolest donkey you've ever seen.. this is a grave of some martyr at their local village...victim to sectarian violence gotta love the scenery we've made fire...wooohoo His home.... This zainab, hussien, and shukry traditional house in the village, its abandoned of course, they no longer live in houses like these but it was interesting to see.. this is some of the village from atop...
Cheaaaaaaay khabar?! Shakooo makooooo….! All the usual…these are just some pics from last week, some of mah thai brothers invited me to go on a trip with them to the Bloudan area, near the Lebanese borders….to feel the stupendous thrill of lush white snooooooow! Snow which I've had enough of in Canada, but what am I kiddin it was nice having an occasional snow ball fight ad not to mention Syrian snow is soooooo different from Canadian snow! Really…it is, its got this thing aobut it, I can't really put my finger on it (maybe cause its too cold..but anyway) …yeah, there is something about snow being in a desert that makes it thrilling….well ok no there isn't? but wouldn't be cool if there was? Confused? I certainly am. It was all fun, except that I had a dentist appointment earlier that day, and the dentists maliciously toook my third molar(wisdom tooth, yup, no wisdom here) out, it was huuuuuugee….and it was painful! So between the pain and the occasional coconsciousness, I managed to have a little fun...
Well here check em out, … for those of u sick of seein me (don't blame you, I'm sick of me tooo :P) there are several scenic pics there too…enjoy….
piece These are the bros, I know you'll have a hard time spotting me in the pic so I'll help u out..from the left Shukree, Hussien, Adam, Baqir, moi, and Dhakir Notice how the snow is actually white??? Fascinatin isn't it?! A deleted scene from War of the Worlds! Don't know whats into me here, could be the toooth pain again? ..Me and Hussien doing some serious meditation at the top of the mount, that said there a lot of biblical mountains around here, well purportedly biblical, I don't know how true the reports are…. The grave of Abel amongst others!... Dis man is the artist, you'll get to see one of his creations soon in the next pic. LoL sittin in front of the idol they created!, I told em it was harram! But them fellas just wouldn't listen! I think idol worship is hereditary! Bah… lol, we actually had people climb up the mountain to take a picture with the idol! Hahah my lordy! It was toooo funnnny its gonna be a popular tourist halmark soon..give it some time...well untill the snow melts...
The music that resonates, caressing the fortress of my heart the crimson citadel, guarding the adversary, from its chambers, her voice is ever so beautiful, melting, mesmerizing, the cold bricks quiver-- her tempo crescendos -- heaving the sirens of my spiteful soul It can't take clamour, it squirms in desperation, the relief of denial If only I were deaf, it would desperately cry, for she sings and I can't help but listen, I love her, the hymns of truth she sings, scathing the callous skin that drapes my heart reminding me of what I have spent this life forgetting, and eternity regretting. So she sings and I can't help but listen to her songs of truth. Her songs of truth.
