Abu Ali's Blues...

Abu Ali...who doesn't know Abu Ali, that old smelly rotten pub in the basement of a building owned by an Armenian Lebanese.

Abu Ali...

Pictures of revolutionaries decorate the place...a yellowed black and white, and heads bow with tinkling glasses filled with alcohol, to the memory of Che, Castro and the good old days...

Ah, the good old days, of the Arab leftists... the "adiyeh" or "qadiyeh" - cause in English, whichever way you wish to spell it.

Abu Ali...

The notorious Abu Ali, whose toilets are playgrounds for revolutionary test and go...

In other words, and please don't mind my bluntness...his toilets are mini whorehouses...where our revolutionaries can finally pull the ultimate plug/flush ...on the decadent, bourgeois, sexist, reactionary environment in which they are oh so trapped...by fucking any woman under the influence of the "adiyeh" - or cause in English...

To be fair, they are not the only ones. Heard the same line amongst the western "revolutionaries", in the name of Spartacus and Engels...and they all ended up bonking in the name of " Oh God, Jesus Christ !"

But Abu Ali is something else...it's an exotic version of the Spartacus fuck...

Because amidst the dialogue, the dialectical dialogue over glasses of Black Label, or J&B, depending on your revolutionary budget, the agenda was different...

The more bourgeois the woman looked, the greater the resistance, and the greater the "revolution"...ending up in the old insalubrious toilets of Abu Ali, visited by a thousand roaches...

You see, that's the nasty thing about having a middle aged woman spilling the beans...she has no more illusions left. She gives them to you uncooked and hard to chew and digest...And she loves it that way - Al Dente.


Of course, knowing the mentality of the average "revolutionary" and non-revolutionary Arab male, alike, the question that he will try to corner you with and which has become a classic, by now is : - And how do you know...unless....

I know because I've been around asshole. I know because you're still squeezing your zits in front of the picture of some Nasrallah and Guevara, thinking they are one and the same...I know because I have enough patience to listen and observe and hold judgment until I get all my facts...This is how I know.

And I know so well, that I have even predicted your fucked up reaction to all the above...

To be fair and impartial, using the Western press terminology that has led to lots of beefing and sexing up of Iraq's invasion...makes you wonder if they don't have some English Abu Ali's version hidden somewhere in some London/American toilet...because to be fair to Ze Lebanese, they are not the only ones...

So many Iraqis, from the communist party (both branches) because there were two of them then..maybe today there is only one - the Sadrist party of the Chief driller of Muqtada Al-Sadr or maybe they are all affiliated to Dawlat Al Qanun, the Dawa Branch of Al-Maliki.

You see, the Iraqi leftists, who sought exile and wrote poetry for McDonalds and Martin Luther King, hoping...you see the Iraqi leftists who sang " Free Kurdistan", you see the Iraqi leftists who made themselves a name fighting Saddam Hussein...are all Abu Ali's partisans.

Today, and since 2003, they voted for their sects...Today and since 2003, they joined the Drilling party of Muqtada Al-Sadr. Today and since 2003, they hailed the Butcher of Falluja - Allawi...Today and since 2003, they welcomed the invasion but with the usual "anti-imperialist" jargon...Today and since 2003, they are so called atheist but love the regime of the Mullahs...

These Abu Ali's as well as their Lebanese and I must add their Palestinian counterparts must have all fucked the "bourgeois" "Sunni" "decadent" woman in some Abu Ali's seedy bar, after reciting some Pablo Neruda poetry, after some Engels or Marx quote, after some "Qadiyeh" or "Adiyeh" punchline - (cause in Arabic).

To be fair, it is not only Ze Lebanese in Abu Ali's kingdom who are guilty...even though I find Ze Lebanese to the most pathetic people around, in particular their so called "revolutionaries".

But do say hello to Abu Ali and tell him that I know...

POLLUTION...

I'm in an absolutely foul mood. I, honest to God can't take the pollution here anymore...Pollution on all levels.

From garbage pollution, to noise pollution to people and their lousy attitude and lack of awareness pollution, I really can't take it anymore...

For the moment the worst is the noise pollution. It is driving me totally insane. I am trying to drown the garbage noise around me, the 10000 decibels of garbage noise from construction sites, from kids on roller blades or playing basket ball inside apartments, from shallow stupid women with their 3 meters pointed high heels pounding over my head, from the honking of cars for a nothing...even at the red traffic light they honk...

I am drowning all of this garbage, in an even greater noise of classical music, my weapon against incivility hoping that classical music will make them shut up, a foreign sound to the usual whorish songs blasting, throughout the day, Haifa Wehbe, style. All to no avail. My desk is trembling, shaking like an earthquake as I am typing to the sound of Bach, a truck and more drilling from construction works have started again...drowning Bach and I.

Oh good God, I can't take it anymore... It is Friday, it is a day off...but there is no respite. None whatsoever. It starts at 5.30 am till 5.30 am. When it's not construction works, it's the barbarian neighbors. The other day, one of them was shoveling gravel on his balcony at 3.00 am and the other was moving furniture at 2.30 am...and so on and so forth. No respite.

I called the police, I was crying over the phone...tears of total frustration of having my poor traumatized ears endlessly under attack. He did not think much of it. I said, listen even God rested on the 7th day. Give us a bit of respite for God's sake. There are laws, apply, enforce the damn laws...

He thought I was talking Chinese or something. What amazes me most, is the people around me. I can't possibly be the only one who can no longer take being subjected to so much noise pollution. But they don't do anything. It's like they are living on mega doses of Valium or something. Even Valium is no longer working in my case.

Sometimes I try to escape to some cafe, and am faced with another level of noise pollution, loud techno or rap shit music and the sounds of gurgling Sheeshas...

I really can't take it anymore.

I miss our home, our garden, the birds chirping in the early morning hours...but that has now become a far away dream...

I just need a bit of quiet Peace...

A Dividing Gap...

I have not felt so cut off from the rest as much as today...

Today, yesterday, six years ago...The rift is getting wider and wider, larger and larger...there used to be a bridge, but not anymore. The bridge turned into one of those tight ropes...and it finally snapped.

Nothing ties me on any level to the American people. Nothing at all. Not even "humanity". As sad as this may sound, it is true. America and its people have actually managed to cut that human tie...Amazing is it not ?

Not really...it's not.

Here is a people, the Iraqis who have done absolutely nothing to America and its "people", yet America and its people have done everything possible, everything imaginable to Iraq and her people.

Anyone who fails to understand that, will never understand anything.

I have promised myself not to write for anyone but me on this blog. And I intend to keep it that way. I will not tow the line, the expected line of me...the building bridges line...there are no bridges left. You fucking bombed all of them, both literally and metaphorically.

Why am I expected to differentiate between what a country does and what its people do, think and believe ?

They say - hey its our government. There is no such thing out there called government. When you go looking for government, you will not find something called government. There are people who form governments. Just like people form societies. Just like people form institutions and systems... PEOPLE.

Your government is made of people who represent you. And you chose them to represent you. In your case you kept choosing war criminals to represent you, as you have done in the past...because the problem is not your government, the problem is not the society out there, the problem is not the institutions and the system, some abstract entity, the problem is YOU. Yes you. You make up all of the above, from government to institution to system to society. And I tell you, it's rotten to the core.

I am on the other side of the divide, that huge divide and it shall remain so...for as long as Iraq is occupied by you and your filth, and by the Iranian filth which you brought with you.

I am on the other side of the divide and for 19 years and we are moving into our 20th year now...since 1991 till this very day, you as a people have done NOTHING concrete, tangible, effective, to stop the genocide of Iraq. NOTHING.

13 years of embargo where thousands of us died like animals, where our graveyards overflowed with babies not even allowed to see the light of day, where our cancer patients were given expired aspirin for their agony, where we sat by candle light for nights on end, where we sold our furniture, clothes, books, to survive, to survive your silence, indifference, apathy and cruelty....and here am addressing you the American shits calling yourself a people.

But that was not enough...for the subhumans that you are...that was not enough...

Just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not enough for you, blood thirsty depraved people...just like Vietnam was not enough for you, monsters of this world.

But we lasted longer than Vietnam and we "failed to capture the imagination of the American people" as in the words of some fucked up journalist of yours, from the left, from your anti-war shits, who are even more corrupt than your governments.

We failed to capture your imagination...

Because you think you have an imagination ? Because you think you are creative in anything of substance ? Because you believe you are something apart with your genius?

You have only one imagination, and its not even an imagination, its pure bestial instincts running wild, clothed in civilian dress...and when you are not too busy killing people, you sit and gaze at your navel, deluding yourselves with promises of great accomplishments.

13 years passed and then another Hiroshima...Iraq. Nay, worse than a Hiroshima.

But you are a people who despite your crap books about "taking an eagle's view" of situations, are incapable of seeing further than your stupid noses...

Because an eagle view is exactly what you need. But eagles fly and you are nothing but worms crawling with illusions of grandeur...

I will give you an eagle's view...

This is your eagle's view

You have destroyed EVERYTHING in Iraq. Every aspect, every home, every neighborhood, every school, every library, every bridge, every building, every worship place, every hospital, every museum, every market, every fiber...

But being the stupid dumb people that you are, you immediately think, about concrete and matter...you can't even think deeper than matter...being the sick fucks that you are.

I repeat - You have destroyed EVERYTHING in Iraq.

Gee, what does destroy mean ? yes, go ahead scratch your heads...and wonder what destroy means...

Yes, Iraq worse than a Hiroshima...Worse than a Hiroshima where our women today are too scared to get pregnant from fear of giving birth to deformed babies looking like monsters...and this is for GENERATIONS TO COME. But you like it that way...you like it when we don't reproduce...you like it when our women are childless like yours...you like it when our families are destroyed like yours...you like it when our children don't have parental care like yours...you like it when our society crumbles into immorality, drugs, crime, prostitution, like yours...yes you like it that way...you can finally find your familiar territory, you can finally find yourselves.

You have destroyed Iraq because deep down you are a deeply racist, chauvinistic, brutal, immoral people...You have destroyed Iraq because you are deep down an envious, covetous, jealous, rootless, ruthless people...You have destroyed Iraq, not just for its oil, not just for its wealth, not just for its resources, not just for its strategic location, not just because of its regime that you hated...oh no, these are only the outer excuses...that your anti-war leftist pieces of garbage like to believe...

You have destroyed Iraq because you HATE ARABS, because you HATE MUSLIMS and because you cannot bear anyone, who refuses not only to bow to you but anyone who despite your years of murderous sanctions, stood still with dignity and honor. And this you cannot take. You cannot take because you have neither. You have no dignity and you have no honor. What you have is false bravado and false pride. And that's it!

And despite all your great proclamations of faith, you are indeed a Godless people.

It no longer matters how many figures in the millions one gives to you and puts in front of your shameless faces...it no longer matters data and statistics...it no longer matters any evidential proof...it no longer matters...because it never mattered to you to start with.

Oh but I wrote to my rep, Oh but I did not vote for so and so, Oh but you need to understand that our government is corrupt and hijacked, oh but you have to know that our media controls us, oh but, oh but, oh but...

Oh, but no...Oh, but no.

20 fucking years listening to your lame shameless excuses...20 years giving you the benefit of the doubt...

Oh but you think we are a real democracy ? This Layla Anwar really believes we can change things around...

Oh yeah ? Well if you managed to change my country into a mass of rubble, am sure you can manage to change things around in your own backyard.

You voted for Bush TWICE, you voted for Obooma, your filthy boys voluntarily join the army, for God's sake even your anti war shits support the war in Afghanistan, and not only that, support the other occupier of Iraq - Iran.

Amazing, truly amazing...

You could have chosen another path from the very beginning..but you did not. Because you did NOT WANT TO...And you did not want because you are a deeply hateful, ignorant, envious, jealous, people who are too lazy to think.

You stopped Vietnam, ok granted it took you some time...but wait it was not you who stopped Vietnam, it was the body bags that did. Seems that violence is the only language you really pay attention to...because you are inherently violent yourselves.

Violent, aggressive, bigoted, haughty, arrogant...

And you expect me to consider the exceptions ? After 20 fucking years ?

You must be kidding...

This dividing gap is a done deal.

And you asked for it.

Endless Ramblings no.5: Time & Agendas.

I haven't rambled on in quite some time. Of course some may disagree and would state that I do nothing but ramble...I beg to differ here. Anyways, who cares what you think or don't think...am well past that stage.

I am terribly bored tonight, which is quite unlike me, because I hardly ever get bored. So am going to ramble on...It's a bit like when I get into a car and drive to nowhere...or walk for hours with no itinerary in mind...I like that. I like the no plan state of mind. It suits me fine. Being an Arab, we are kind of allergic to planning in advance. A mixture of fatalism, superstition, survival in endless wars, and a non-linear conception of Time. That really infuriates Westerners here. I noticed it. It makes them fume...

It really infuriates them because they want everything done NOW. Tayyeb why now ? why not later? What's the urgency of NOW ? Is it a matter of Life and Death ? Of course not.

So they say - but you don't understand, Time is money. We don't have time to waste like you folks. We have to do get things done NOW. That's another favorite word of theirs next to money, doing...They are always doing. But what are they REALLY doing ? Produce, produce, consume, consume, more and more...

What for ?

Do you need all that junk ? Do you need all that rubbish ? Do you need all that pollution ? Do you need a thousand brands of basically the same product ?

Of course you don't. Oh but no, they need to have it done and done NOW.

You see they have an agenda. A political, a business agenda for you. They call it "development".

Tayyeb, another question. If you are so developed, why are you so fucking miserable ?
If you are so developed, why don't you enjoy what you already have instead of greedily coveting more from others ?
If you are so developed, why are you so pressed like slaves ?

You see, for a backward Oriental Arab like myself, all this doesn't make sense.

Even in leisure. They rush. They rush to the gym, they rush for a walk, they rush to the restaurant, they rush to the movies, they rush to their shrink's office. And the most ironical one, is they rush to Meditation and Yoga classes.

Yabba' it's the rush that's driving you crazy...trust me.

The money rush, the gold rush, the adrenaline rush, the instant coffee rush, the one minute enlightenment rush...This is what is driving you insane. And insane people commit insane acts. It's really very simple.

I see them here as tourists. They come for 2.5 days and they want to see the whole country in 48 hours. Every village, every castle, every monument, every souk, every museum, every hot spot...They wake up at the crack of down and rush through the map...rush...till midnight and by the time they reach their hotels, they are so exhausted from too much sightseeing...

It always makes me wonder what did they really learn from their "holiday" ? Nothing.

They will land back home and show digital pictures to the rest of the family and they would go "Oh it was ever so pretty, but we were too knackered to enjoy any of it" Well am not surprised. Of course you would be...your approach is faulty to start with. It sucks.

So they have a agenda with next hour, next day, next week, next month, next year and next 5 years...a whole planned out schedule...

I am curious as to how can they be so sure they are going to be around in the next hour, next day, next week, next month, next year...?

Since there are no guarantees, why plan ?

Everything is so methodical and predictable...until the unpredictable hits. That twist of destiny, fate, coincidence, call it what you like and all your plans are gone, vanished...

I stopped planning.

I live hour to hour, day to day...If I'm hungry I eat. If I'm sleepy, I sleep. If I feel like leaving my pile of laundry to reach the ceiling, I leave it. If I feel like meeting with people, I meet, otherwise am totally unreachable. If I feel like dancing in the middle of my living room for no reason at all, I dance...

I don't have an agenda neither in friendship nor in love. I have no personal stratagems and no personal interests...I suppose that is why I am lousy at kissing ass. Some people excel in it, they've elevated it - kissing ass that is, to an art form. I can't do it. It's not because am morally superior or anything like that, but I simply have not learned the secrets of that particular trade.

Of course, today they have a polite word for that - they call it "networking" or "gaining friends and influencing people"...but really it's all about kissing ass. And it does come in quite handy with profitable pay offs, especially when dealing with the Westerners who carry their particular "development" agendas, all for your benefit - you backward Oriental Arab.

My agenda is not complicated and is quite simple - I don't have one.

Intoxicated...

How can one not be intoxicated when listening to Um Kulthum ? You don't need alcohol, hashish, uppers or downers...just listen to her voice.

How can one not hold onto intoxication, when everything around you is being banned ?

In Iraq, they have banned alcohol, in the South, and in Baghdad except in the Green Zone. You need to keep the pimps and whores happy there.

You see, the problem with banning alcohol is that every Iraqi will tell you, that not only we were the first to press dates to make Arak or Raki, and that we were the first to invent beer, from Sumerian times...but that all the poets and thinkers from Abbasid times until the new Safavids landed, used to enjoy a drink or two. How do you think Poetry flourished ?

(notice how the word Uruk and Arak, Iraqi and Raki are closely related)

And there is an added problem here...that those who are doing the banning, the Shiite Mullahs from Iran and their Iraqi followers, are known to be the heaviest drinkers...

It is a known fact that the whiskey and Arak bottles appear after the last prayer of the day, the evening prayer...Ya'nee they finish their sermons and the drinking starts.

But you see, now, with the new morality of the new Iraq, this is forbidden in public...I say in public because trust me, a good deal of those motherfucker hypocrites still drink...

And those who don't drink, have substituted opium instead. Like the Jaysh Al-Mahdi of Muqtada Al-Sadr. That too is a well known fact -- those thugs were/are under the effect.

The new morality of the new Iraq encourages Opium trading with Iran at the highest echelons, but forbids alcohol. I wrote a post about that on my other blog.

The new morality of the new Iraq forbids and murders women who go out without a veil and wear a little make up, but encourages prostitutes in the Green Zone.

The new morality of the new Iraq forbids and murders gays but allows paedophile trafficking rings that trade in Iraqi children.

The new morality of the new Iraq is strict on adultery with honor killings on the rise, but leaves rapists on the loose...

The new morality of the new Iraq is the morality of criminals, of the corrupt and the depraved, the morality of the hypocrites...

The new morality of the new Iraq is a carbon copy of the "morality" of Iran and America.


As for me, I shall continue in my intoxication...with Umm Kulthum, before they ban her too.

Intoxication is my new form of Resistance.

Yalla, come and get intoxicated with me...





A short piece from a long song. Al Atlal - The Ruins.

The Ruins, how appropriate.

I will copy the translation for this bit only as sung. The rest of the poem can be read HERE.

Had love seen two as intoxicated as us?
So much hope we had built up around us
And we walked in the moonlit path, joy skipping along ahead of us
And we laughed like two children together
And we ran and raced our shadows
And we became aware after the euphoria and woke up
If only we did not awaken...


If only we did not awaken...Indeed.

For those who have mastered the art of Sama'a , the art of listening, you will see how each word is enacted by her magical voice, you will see how she has mastered and lives the art...the art of intoxication.

Youtube : Robert Dominkovic, november 2008.

Her Words Bring Me To Life Again.

This Sufi song based on the writings of Ibn Arabi is too beautiful not to upload.
I will translate later, but cannot promise. Will do my best.
And some of you may know that in some instances, translations are not important.





Ensemble Ibn Arabi - Her words bring me to Life again.

youtube : amoureux de vivre, June 2009.

Only Ask of God.

The wonderful Mercedes Sosa passed away. She, amongst others, forged me with her songs.

Rest in peace, wonderful Mercedes. Rest in peaceful songs and melodies away from human indifference and injustice.

You gave it all.

Rape - The Final Frontier.

I feel very disturbed. All the positive energy I have harnessed during the day is now gone, evaporated within seconds, pushed away, pushed down to the floor, beaten and kicked out of me...

This happens often. It happens every time I hear or read about another rape story. And since 2003, I have heard hundreds of them, literally.

One never gets used to it. NEVER. Each and every single time, the rage that wells up inside of me is even greater than the previous one...and so is my hatred, a raw hatred.

During the "tyrannical rule of the Dictator", rapists in Iraq were executed. A good deterrent don't you think ? I think so too.

Today, I wish for every single rapist in Iraq to be not executed, but castrated. Yes, castrated and preferably by the woman he raped.

Rabid animals need to be put down, and in the case of rapist men, be put down slowly...I think castration is a nice slow death, am all in favor of. Yes, no mercy.

I have met, spoken to, listened to, read about hundreds of cases of Iraqi women raped since "their liberation". Raped by militias, raped by the police, raped by American soldiers, raped by contractors, raped by neighbors, raped by strangers...

This physical, sexual, moral, spiritual assault on the Feminine is ongoing in Iraq...
It has not stopped. And will not stop because rape is encouraged. Yes you read me right. It is encouraged.

When a rapist(s) is not arrested and not tried, a message is sent out, a clear and loud message saying - the feminine body is public property for you to possess and enjoy.

The invasion and the occupation of the Iraqi woman is a DIRECT consequence of the invasion and occupation of her country. The two go together, hand in hand.

The Occupation of Iraq has set free the perverse demons of a deviant Patriarchy, that were chained by authority, an authority that respected and protected women, and are now set free to do as they please with our bodies...

Our bodies have become the final frontier for the final weapon at the disposal of the invader whoever he may be - the final weapon being his dick, forced upon our bodies, forcefully penetrating us, just the way the occupier did when he set foot in 2003. This is a continuum on the same line...

I can tell you of tens of cases I personally know of, tens of female lives who have been totally destroyed because of rape with very severe consequences, some of which were suicide or attempts at suicide.

Iraqi women victims of rape have NO SUPPORT network to turn to. They cannot report a rape case because the puppet police themselves are rapists. They cannot speak about it because of the stigma attached. They cannot openly share it with other women because of the shame they feel. They have no hot line, no counselor, no refuge...they have nobody.

Their body also becomes a no body. It is no longer their body but their body. The public body. They are no longer owners of it, but the public is. The male public to be precise. The male collectivity who lets the crime of rape go by...and laughs it off.

Yes laughs it off, secretly and sometimes not so secretly.

You know why ?

Because every single male is a potential rapist.

The rape of the female body is the final frontier...and there are so many other ways to rape a woman...no wonder they laugh it off...each single one of them has done it one way or another...

Ask any woman and she will tell you that the fear of rape is always lurking in her mind...because somewhere on a collective unconscious level, all women have experienced it either directly, or indirectly....

I am always shocked by the laxity and flippancy with which rape is dealt with. That in itself is the ultimate assault.

Rape is the only area, where the male object can prove himself to be a subject, where the penis becomes power personified. I say male object because men are slaves of their desires and a slave is an object.

I know you will jump to the defense and say not all men. I don't give a fuck how you argue around it...

In times of peace you are like dogs kept on a leash and in times of war, you are nothing but unbridled beasts let loose. And for most women, nay all women, it is a time of war, because there is a war going on, a silent war against women, against us.

And women, Iraqi women in particular, know what am talking about. And you don't.

Another story has added itself to the pile that I carry with me...has added itself to the anonymous list of names...to the unknown, faceless initials and forgotten bodies...

Another fictitious name, Hoda. Hoda, a mother, a wife...Hoda a woman, a person...

Hoda fled to Syria, July this year. This year when security in Iraq is supposedly so wonderful. She fled after she was abducted along with her son for a ransom.

For 13 days, she was repeatedly raped by a gang of 10 men, daily.

Don't just read that sentence like idiots. Read it slowly until it sinks into your heads...Close your eyes and imagine it. Feel it happening to you, to your mother, your daughter, your sister, your wife, your lover...

I know that some of you perverted shits out there would probably get a hard on reading this. And I would not be surprised either. This is the sickness of your psyche and nature. And it needs to be treated in a radical fashion, as I said earlier on.

There a hundreds of cases like Hoda. Ranging from Abu Ghraib victims to victims of Shiite militias, to men in uniforms...to men, to rabid animals not even fit to be caged in a zoo.

I draw a lesson here and I hope, even though am not holding my breath, that you do too.

It is high time that male objects,(which is what you are) start a new chapter in their lives.

Take the Iraqi example as a lesson for yourselves. Use it. Use it to go within yourselves for a change, instead of acting out your deep soul sickness...
Use it to look inside...use it as an opportunity to become less of a stranger with who you are...use it to face your own monsters, those monsters that have created havoc in the world ever since you took power. Use it to face your own shadows, your own demons, your own perversions, your own twisted minds...use it.

Use it, so all of us Iraqi women out there - so all of our crying wounds and stubborn scars would not be in vain...

Use it to regain a semblance of humanity.

Use it to regain your true selves.

Use it as the final frontier to re-connect with what you were initially created for,

Use it to re-connect with Life.


Painting : Iraqi female artist, Betool Fekaiki.