P.T.S.D

I counted the number of wars I've lived through, excluding Intifadas and the Arab "Spring"...they amount to 9. These are the ones I remember ;

1967, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1982, 1990, 2003, 2006, 2008, plus the intifidas, plus the Arab "springs" Libya, Syria, etc...

That's a hell of a lot. The minute I feel am getting over my PTSD, I get a new booster dose.

A state of constant upheaval, and no you don't get used to it. Well you think you got used to it but you don't. Not really...something inside of you dies each time...and the thing that is left alive becomes raw like red hot coal...

I think about how many were killed and buried...since my earliest memories ? thousands, thousands...

I don't like flippancy, hence I have zero respect for the younger generations who had it somewhat easier...whose memories are numbed with MTV and ROTANA video clips... I have zero respect because they haven't read history, am not talking of ancient history here, you can forget about ancient history with them, they won't find it on kindle and e-books, am talking about recent history and 1967 onwards is not that far back.

I hate their flippancy, their cocksure resemblance of knowledge, their petty ideologies and their ignorance. That's a fact. Even though only one or two generations separate us but I feel the gap is huge, like over a hundred years. They too cause me another kind of PTSD.

Over and above wars and a crap generation who doesn't bother to learn shit, who doesn't bother to learn the important stuff, I have PTSD from Arab and Muslim men whom I shall call the "Eastern" man.

I am traumatized by these men, seriously. I find my whole experience with them traumatic, just like the wars I was subjected to. Their lies, their double standards, their comedy, their bad theatrical plays, their violence, their abuse, their infidelities, their hypocrisy, their ego centrism, their pretenses, their fake appearances, their cultural schizophrenia, their machismo, their spoiled natures, their hypocrisy, their cowardice...I can go and on.. all of that has traumatized me...

Yes maybe there are some good ones around but am not a laboratory and am not willing to experiment the good from the bad. I've seen enough.

I keep being told - all your fingers are not of the same length. .but no one has the honesty to tell me ---all the fingers belong to the same hand.

Maybe am jaded or désabusée as they say in French, it's possible. And am sure other races have the same problems or worse...but I don't really care about others...this is MY context and this is MY reality.

A Series of Dreams...

I need to remember them, I am opting to record them here and not in my notepad. And I need not justify why either, because I know some of you are so curious in a very unhealthy kind of way, bordering on --- you fill in the blanks. Stealing souls maybe ?

It is said that when you are asleep your soul is stolen away from you, taken to another realm, another reality, another world...ancient people believed so, hence the importance of Dreams.

All dreams are carriers of a message. ALL DREAMS. Sometimes the message is a personal one, sometimes it is a premonitory one, and sometimes it just tells you that you ate too much before going to sleep and that you need to go to bed on a relatively empty stomach.

So faithful to my ancestors, I record dreams, in private and in public...I am generous that way, I offer up my "psyche" for scrutiny. I can't access your dreams but I allow you occasionally to access mine...and always with a purpose. Dreams teach me and I teach in return.

Hence I shall title each dream for "convenience" sake.


No Man's Land

I saw myself stuck at the borders, frontiers of two countries, where the language was not clear, it a mix of English, Arabic, something with no identity. I was trying to move forward from one customs post to another and in between both countries, there was a stretch of land that belonged to no country, to no government, to no one. A very short, small, limited
stretch of land, squeezed in between two checkpoints. CUSTOMS checkpoints.

So I presented my documents to one and he kept staring at my papers, and they were all in order, but he found something wrong with them and me. He said -- you are lacking a stamp here. I said there's nothing lacking here, ALL IS COMPLETE. He insisted that I lacked something. He ordered me to go back, to return miles to get a stamp of some sort. I went back and returned with the RIGHT STAMP. He checked my documents again and again found something wrong with them. Incomplete - he ordered. There was always something WRONG with MY documents/Identity.
This time I was adamant - NO THEY ARE COMPLETE.
You will not go through - he said. OH YES I WILL I replied. No you're not - we will withhold you and all your belongings. He took my suitcase but I managed to SNATCH BACK MY IDENTITY documents from him and ran past his CHECKpoint to escape to the other one, but could not reach the other border. I found myself STUCK in a NO MAN's LAND, but holding my IDENTITY in HAND.


American Elections - The White Christian Right.

Another dream, another title.

I saw myself in some large cubicle, run by Americans. It was like a steel square box, cold, with metal benches, and inside that large sealed cubicle, there were other smaller cubicles, all made of hard steel, and each CUBICLE WAS DESIGNATED FOR A SPECIFIC PEOPLE and a SPECIFIC GEOGRAPHICAL REGION.
There was the US territory cubicles and in them were detainees - Americans Muslims, Blacks and what was called in the dream "sexual deviants" - mainly gays. But the American Muslims WERE the majority in this local cubicle. They had the rough treatment.

In the other cubicles which were less "hospitable" were Arab Muslims SECULAR but STILL MUSLIMS. I was one of them.

The person in charge of this American DETENTION CENTER, was a woman, straight out of the 50's, or some McCarthy period. She was a a WASP. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.

I remember vividly the way she was dressed. She had shortish hair with ends curled up, like from some American BLACK & WHITE movie. A white shirt with frills buttoned all the way up, a longish grey skirt right below the knees and the skirt waist went up right under her heavy breasts, with a thin black belt. She was wearing eye glasses and held a stick in her hand. She looked like one of those PURITANICAL TEACHERS, a mix of English and American culture, obsessed with "MORALS" and the "RIGHT WAY" way of doing things.

She separated both local (American groups) and us "savages." My group had no more access to the local American group of Muslims, Blacks and Gays. We were totally segregated. She had a SPECIAL REHABILITATION PROGRAM for the group I belonged to. I looked around me and we were all secular Arab MUSLIMS but according to her we were the most DANGEROUS. So my turn came up.

She started interrogating me with her stick in hand. She said - you don't look Muslim nor Arab. What are you hiding ? I said I wasn't hiding anything. She said do you know about Jesus ? I said of course I know about Jesus. She added - do you know the morality of Jesus, and of America. I replied affirmatively. She said - you are lying, you are hiding something. So she put me through a series of torture, while making them look as if these were not torture but "rehabilitation". The torture techniques looked "civilized" because she kept that "proper" accent of American "decency".

So I was put through a whole series of "rehabilitation" techniques. I was hanged from my arms, I was made to squat for days, I was made to sleep on very cold metal beds, I was made to shiver from freezing temperatures, I was made to stand for days with my arms up in the air and every time I dozed off someone would poke me. In the dream I was wondering why is this happening to me - am "secular". There must be some sort of misunderstanding here. I am not a "Muslim Terrorist". I don't even veil. But this WASP was adamant that I WAS THE ENEMY of AMERICA.

I think that the message of this particular dream is too evident, well for me it is. The EXTREME RIGHT will TAKE OVER AMERICA (not that it makes much of a difference from what you have now), the American Muslims, Blacks and "sexual deviants" will be HARASSED big time in particular the American Muslims. And as for us, "savages", the plan for America is to make sure to install non secular governments in the region.


Resigning from the Pharaoh with no Balls.

My third and last dream that I care to share. The others I keep for myself because they are none of your damn business. Remember that sentence ---> none of your damn business.

I saw myself in front of some modern Egyptian Pharaoh, an Egyptian boss, in my mind I associate Egyptians with corruption, lies and false bravado. Yes that's the way it is. Come and sue me for being politically incorrect. Wait till you read about my dream with an African polygamist, what will you do then? - come and brainwash my unconscious mind for not falling in line with your putrid politically correct tyranny ?!

Anyways I was standing in some large office with tacky leather furniture just the way the Egyptians like them. These are "modern" times and the Pharaoh in question was dressed in a dark sober suit, with a tie of course. He was tall, big, and had an imposing aura to him. But I knew he had no balls. It was some secret knowledge I somehow had access to. The Pharaoh was in fact an eunuch - hence his IMPOSING status. He didn't know that I knew that he had no balls.

So I stood in front of him, for some reason I had a "corporate" look on. I presented to him MY RESIGNATION. He looked it with DISDAIN and signed it much quicker than I thought. In the dream I was thinking he may force me to stay in HIS OFFICE working for him, but he didn't. He accepted my resignation as if wanting to get rid of me fast.

I said to him - now that you signed my resignation, I want a certificate that I worked for you for so many years, a WORK certificate. He handed me a piece of paper, with red ink blotted all over, with qualities scrapped off the list, with work tasks that did not reflect my actual work, he was demeaning me as a way of his LAST GOODBYE.

I kept standing there and said to him - this work certificate does not reflect the work I have done for you. CORRECT IT. He refused. So I said to him - YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU CAN KEEP THAT CERTIFICATE AND STICK UP YOUR PHARAOH ASS - I KNOW WHAT I HAVE DONE, WHAT KIND OF WORK I DID FOR YOU. I KNOW THE ENERGY, TIME AND EFFORT I PUT IN YOUR INSTITUTION. I DON'T CARE IF YOU ACKNOWLEDGE IT, ME, OR NOT.

Then I saw myself walking in some UNFAMILIAR street, I felt light, as if a HUGE BURDEN was taken OFF my shoulders, I knew I did the RIGHT THING - NOT working for the Pharaoh no more...but I also felt apprehension, some angst because I was now in UNFAMILIAR territory and I had just resigned from my FAMILIAR SECURITY.

I was very light now that I have gotten rid of the Pharaoh with no balls who never acknowledged me, nor my "work" and who kept putting me down, tearing me down even though I did an excellent job, but I was on my own and having to figure out how to make it.

*******

Hahahahaha - "My" "Unconscious" - SUBCONSCIOUS MIND - ROCKS! Thank you Ancestors, for teaching me all about dreams.

Strings...

Some people would like to pull my strings...some people wish to pull my strings...some people desire to pull my strings and some try pathetically, in the most futile of ways and in vain, to string me along...

Hahahahaha.

I pull the strings here...overtly, covertly, in my own way, in my own timing, in my own style.

No one pulls my strings for me...

Don't delude yourselves.

That's the way it IS, that's the way it shall remain, unless I decide otherwise.

15minutes 13 seconds of Perfection...

Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing. Provided that you know HOW to LISTEN. This I have no control over.



Video: Omar Bashir and his group. #Iraq - November 13, 2011

Nouveau Riche...

I absolutely detest Nouveau Riche, the culture, the mentality, the attitudes, the thinking, the lifestyle, the way they dress, the way they drink, the way they eat...I detest EVERYTHING about the Nouveau Riche.

It's not the person as such but the box in which they put themselves in, and since nouveau riche have zero culture, the box shapes them. When I say culture, I need to define what I mean by it in this context. A mix of education, behavior, ethics, outlook, etc...by education I don't mean a formal education either, because the nouveau riche send their kids to the best schools, by education I mean an effort to process knowledge. Nouveau riche have none of it. Nouveau riche content themselves with their money and their new found status conferred to them by this money.

The nouveau riche lives center around appearances, name dropping, what kind of cars they ride, what kind of clothes they wear, impressing others with material things, I know the nouveau riche so well that I can actually paint their portraits one by one.
From the actual background, to the family, to the father, to the mother, to the kids, to the kind of house they live in, to the minutest details of their private lives...I smell a nouveau riche miles away...

A nouveau riche is someone who made his fortune fairly quickly, through fast business deals, during times of economic boom, sometimes during times of war - a war profiteer, sometimes from very shady transactions, a nouveau riche is usually a "smart entrepreneur" who is ambitious and who tries to make it by any means possible...not always unethical means but almost always obscure deals...

I have a particular obsession with the females nouveau riche, because the men are fairly straightforward in being spotted, the females on the other hand try very hard to project a sophisticated classy attitude that is quickly belied by little details that one perceives either in the way they speak, their house decor, their clothes, their jewelry, the way they talk in private and you catch them unguarded, their airs, the way the move their bodies, their hands, the expressions on their faces....many little details that are a give away...

Contrary to their husbands or fathers, because they are almost always a wife or daughter of someone, it is rare to find a self made nouveau riche woman in this part of the world, these nouveau riche women suffer from a chronic feeling of never being up to some illusory standard of what richness/wealth is. Behind this chronic feeling of inferiority lies another layer of chronic inferiority that of an empty vessel - basically lack of knowledge. Nouveau riche hardly ever read in particular their women. Reading is limited to women's magazines, celebrity gossip, and if really pushed to the extreme, the shortest article in a Time magazine, just so they can say they read an article in the Time magazine. These women are almost always intellectually vacuous i.e a permanent state of vacancy inhabits their minds, and thus filled with the most mundane of pettiness that is reflected on a daily basis in their worthless lives...

Since I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the Middle East, I can safely say that the worst kind of female nouveau riche are to be found in the following countries - Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt. I haven't mentioned the Gulf, because to me the whole of the Gulf is nouveau riche but I will not go into the reasons for that right now.

Of course and for the sake of fairness, I must also add that I have come across nouveau riche people from other cultures, they all more or less share common traits, with slight "cultural" variations. I can tell you heaps about the nouveau riche from Russia, about the English, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Australians, the Latin Americans...I observe so I notice and register...

And of course not to forget the Israeli nouveau riche, anyone who has been to Israel can tell you the endemic tackiness of Israeli society, that is kind of expected since Israel is a nouveau riche country par excellence, being built by profiteering from murder and theft...

I really could go on and on about this rot called the nouveau riche, but I would rather keep the minute details for characters in a novel...they would surely enrich it.

A Moment of Magic

Mariza, one of the best FADO voices from Portugal with the great Cesaria Evora. Granted, the sound quality is not all that great, but who cares when there's magic !

Love # 2012.

The minute you mention the word Love, most people immediately think of Romance. That is normal, healthy intimacy is the lieu where love can express itself...

But that is not the only place...there are so many other places where Love can grow.

My Wish for you in 2012, is that you find it, in that place, where you hardly ever look - inside of you.