the problem with watching the news

The problem with watching the news…

I have watched the news, and wept over the afflictions of nations and rejoiced for their victories. I thought I understood what was happing in tragedy stricken countries, presumed I had a grasp on the facts and events.
Today the news reports from the streets where I grew up. On those streets, that hadbeen perfumed with the smell of jasmine on hot summer days, the streets that I had  rollerbladed down with my best friend, and today beyond my understanding the news is reporting from those very streets; and the news reports death. Before this I had watched the news and sobbed for the tragedy of the loss of human life, once upon a time I watched the news, and I thought understood the gravity of what I watched.Today I receive a message from my friend, whom I had once rollerbladed with along those streets, telling me the house next to her has been bombed and that she might die, that she loves me, and to never forget her, and I am beyond tears, I realize, than, I never truly understood.

When the Syrian revolution started last March I admit I was a bit apprehensive. I was, at the time, in Damascus and had many doubts over whether or not the small riots in the border city of Dara’a would ever amount to anything. A year and five months have passed; to say I was wrong would be an understatement of the greatest kind. I moved to Minnesota, a year ago, and have not been able to witness much of the changes to my country first hand.  But in some ways I have witnessed it, through the eyes of my grandmother, and the statuses of my Syrian Facebook friends, through a phone call were I have heard the echoes of bullets whizzing through the air, and through pictures sent to me by a boy I grew up with, of his roommate; dead. No matter how many phone calls I get or pictures that are sent to me, I am still ten thousand miles away and so I watch the news, in fact I am addicted to news channels and websites. I flick through YouTube videos faster than ever, and harass my friends to keep me updated on what they have witnessed and heard. The problem is that the more I watch the news the less I seem to know, the reporter tells me that the Syrian revolution is breeding sectarian violence, but the reporter clearly didn’t hear of how the church bells rang simultaneously with the mosques call for prayer, in honor of the fallen revolutionary Basel Shehadeh, images so beautiful and yet so heartbreakingly sad. The reporter tells me that the revolution is breeding religious fanatics, clearly he hasn’t heard of one of the most famous icons of the Syrian revolution Rima Dali who is actually an outspoken atheist. The reporter tells me that the situation in Syria is looking good today, clearly he isn’t friends with about two hundred Syrians who have suddenly disappeared off my news-line because their electricity has been shut down. The more the reporter talks, the less he seems to say.

On the 18th of July the movement took a huge turn and arrived in the capitol Damascus, and my phone exploded with messages from friends and family. Reading their accounts, listing to their shaken voices full of fear and dread. I have felt the most helpless I have ever felt in my life. I sat glued to the computer unable to move or speak except between gasps of tears. My hands shook, and I rushed to news stations desperate to get facts only to find there the reporters dry language and empty eyes. How they enraged me! How could they speak about numbers and figures and how things have not been fully verified? I wanted to yell at them, demand they give me something real. Something beyond the cold readings of death. They spoke of numbers; those numbers were my friends, my family, and my people. How many of them had people like me watching the news, praying that the number is not someone they love? A few months ago I watched a report on the presumed rape of arrested women protesters, while I knew my close friend had been taken as a prisoner and her family and friends hadn’t heard from her for three days. I remember wanting to yell at the reporter to shut up! She was fine! She would be fine! She had to be fine! Now once again I sat there watching and reading reporters talking about statistics and numbers and how the numbers kept changing according to whom you talked to, as if it was a doubtful thing that people were dying, and being massacred. I cringe at the many times I was guilty of watching the news and only seeing a number myself. I have watched the news and heard about 1,833 fatalities from Katrina, how many times have I heard that and thought of it as nothing more than an arbitrarily conceived number. Did I ever stop and think that maybe it was more than a number? How could I now expect people to be up in arms about the genocide of the Syrian people, if I am like them, guilty of separating a number from a face? Isn’t the 18,612 reported dead in Syria just a number to people who don't know that a friend of mine has a little boy with the sweetest eyes and the kindest face? They don't look at that number and become paralyzed by fear that he might be among them. How could they, to them, its just a number.

I have watched the news, and I’m guilty of separating a number from a face. I used to watch the news and take the “facts” the reporter told me at face value. I pray that I shall never be so foolish again.The problem with watching the news is that it makes you feel informed, and knowledgeable. I have bumped into one too many people whom think they are the expert on the “Syrian situation” and want to explain to me how they have the solution that somehow fifteen million people have failed to grasp. The problem with watching the news is that somehow it disconnects from reality, it somehow underplays the travesty behind those numbers. It misinforms and misguides, it underplays certain aspects and events and overemphasizes others.
in watching the news I wonder can something be done to fix this? Or are we doomed to never know the tragic truth until it comes upon us in all its horrifying glory? Maybe in this case, ignorance actually is bliss. and i turn off the television.


The Facebook page of the hero BasselShehadehhttps://www.facebook.com/Bassel.Song.of.Freedom
The story of BasselShehadeh
http://naveen-qayyum.blogspot.ch/2012/06/thanks-for-coming-to-pakistan.html?spref=fb

Huma Abedin

Huma Abedin is now receiving death threats, after Michele Bachmann made some unbiased claims... this didn't have to happen to this nice lady but thanks to Michele Bachmann she now has to have protection against people that actually believed Bachmann knew what she was talking about when she has no CLUE!
and the bullying continues 

Damascus

I cannot stop crying, my Syrian friends keep sending me "goodbye" texts, please everyone pray for Syria...may they soon be free from the evil regime

Saint Cloud, and me

The top five misconceptions about me that I have encountered in Saint Cloud:

Living in Saint Cloud has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my life on so many levels, but one of the funniest things I have learned here is that my mere existence has the power of offending people; that me being in a room can be politically incorrect and that people have some pretty interesting misconceptions about me. And, despite the fact that I sometimes enjoy the absurdity of the misconceptions and the look of offence on middle aged women when I buy milk at wall mart, I think some clarification is necessary… at least for anyone who will read this. So I have listed here the top five misconceptions that have been voiced to me (mind you there may be some that I am unaware of) with some clarifications:

So in no particular order:

1.       Why do I want to kill everyone, especially people who leave Islam?

The reason I know about this one is that a girl came up to me during Islamic awareness week and started asking me this again and again never giving  me an actual chance to answer her… But if she had here is what I would have said: first of all rest assured I do not want to kill anyone. Killing is just as much a crime in Islam as it is in any major religion, and although I have fantasized about doing some violence to my English teacher who assigned a twenty page research paper, I would never act on those inclinations. Furthermore this concept that Islam orders the death of reverts is only held by those ignorant of the religion; actually during the time of  Prophet Muhammad there are three documented incidents of people leaving Islam, two of which (Hisham and Ayash ) turned back to the polytheism (worship of many gods represented by statues) practiced by the people of Quraysh. At the time no decision or sanction was taken against them. Later on Ayyash came back to Islam and revelation subsequently was revealed in order to ease his exceedingly harsh vision of himself: “Say: O those who have transgressed against themselves! Do not despair of God’s mercy: for God forgives all sins; for He is the All-Forgiving, the Most Merciful”39:53 upon hearing these verses, Hisham also came back to Islam. The third example is of one who did not return: Ubaydallah ibn Jahish, who had gone to Abyssinia with the first group of emigrants and who then converted to Christianity. Neither the prophet from Mecca nor any of the Muslims who lived in Abyssinia took any measure against him: he remained a Christian until he died without ever being harassed or ill-treated.

So I am sorry to disappoint you but I am a Muslim and an Arab, who really does want world peace.

2. Why don’t you believe in Jesus?

My friend who works at Burger King was the first person to tell me a story about someone saying something on those terms, and then I started getting bombarded with pamphlets on the topic.  In fact one of the six pillars of belief in Islam requires that I do believe in him, and in the virgin Mary (who has an entire chapter ’surah19’ named after her in the Quran), the story of the virgin birth of Jesus is related as such in the Quran :

{“Relate in the book [the story of] Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place of the East. She placed a screen [to screen her self] from them: then we sent her Our Angel, and he appeared to her as a man in all respects. She said; ‘I seek refuge from you in the shelter of the most gracious, if you fear him.’ He said: ‘I am only a messenger from your Lord [to announce] to you a gift of a pure son.’ She said: ‘how shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and that I am not unchaste?’ He said so [it will be]; your Lord says: that is easy for me and [we wish] to appoint him as a sign to men and a mercy from us; it is a matter decreed.”}

The main difference is that Muslims do not attribute divinity to him, rather regard him to be a greatly revered prophet- as the core belief of Islam is that God is One, neither begot nor begotten.

3.        So was it your dad or your husband that made you wear a scarf?

This has to be one of the most annoying misconceptions for me.  I am a strong feminist and the fact that everyone thinks that my actions are because of some “man” always gets to me. People like this are usually very surprised when they meet my dad in his jeans jacket and clean shaven face or my husband with his hair in a pony tail.  Let me make this very clear; the way I dress is my choice, and my prerogative. The fact that it is beyond your capacity to accept that someone would choose this type of dress is irrelevant. This ‘misconception’  goes beyond my choice of clothes as an outspoken atheist in my university during a debate on something or other pointed at me and said : “You make your women sit separately and don’t let them sit with you.” that got my blood boiling, and I promptly stood up walked to a different seat between two boys who I actually did know and said “No one MAKES me sit any where” what he thought was someone “making” me sit somewhere was just me sitting with a group of my friends who happen to be female. But I kind of think this proves this white middle aged man was the kind of man he was accusing Muslim men of being: chauvinistic… sigh

And since we are on the topic of clothes; no I am not bald nor do I sleep in my scarf.

Maybe these questions sound silly to you, but I have been asked them many times. My mom once (just for kicks) maintained a straight face and said I not only sleep in my scarf I also shower in it LOL you should have seen the look of horror on the women’s face. Regardless the answer to both questions is no. I am not bald, and no, I do not sleep (or shower) in my scarf. Actually I don’t wear it at home at all, and at my wedding I had my hair done all pretty just like any other run of the mill girl; difference is I probably am not going to show you the pictures (if you’re a boy). 

4.       Wow that’s a really great painting/photo/film you made, you’re not like other Muslim women, are you?

GAH…the best part about this question/statement is the person saying it ALWAYS does so with a big smile on his face and a presumption that he is flattering me, when in fact he is simply proving his own limited mind set and ignorance.

 Listen just because fox news and the likes of it shows you a bunch of sad oppressed Muslim women does not mean that the other over almost one billion Muslim women are actually like that. Please just except that I am the rule and they are the exception; not the other way around. Don’t believe me? Go live in a predominately Muslim country for a year (Malaysia for example-check link below) and interact with the normal population. Now I am not denying the existence of oppressed Muslim women, but there are also (sadly) oppressed Christian women and oppressed atheist women and and and….  It is a sad state of affairs but it is the truth. It frustrates me that  every single art piece I make is  considered to be a political statement. Sometimes I really wish people would stop totalizing me and look at my work as they would anyone else’s.

5.       You worship Allah and I worship God/you asking Muhammad to give you a blessing

Here is an interesting tidbit of information: there are many Christians in the Arab world and when they speak of God they also say Allah, because for the BILLIONTH time Allah is God in Arabic. Christians in Syria also say things like: insh-allah which means God willing, so really this discussion is getting tedious. Also Muslims do not not not not not worship Muhammad; he is considered a prophet; we do not pray to him; we pray to God - full stop. End of story

Well that’s it for now.. Please follow these links.  Thanks for bearing with me to the end, and sorry if I sounded like I was ranting…I kind of was..

Meet an extremely talented Malaysian girl http://youtu.be/AGllgO_mBoE

Spend a few minutes looking at this, change ur perspective http://badassmuslimahs.tumblr.com/

Peace

" <Then let's put an end to the killing!> I cried. <Your side, my side. The Animorphs will be here soon. They've seen me. There will be a battle. Some of those Controllers down there on the ground will die! Some of my friends may die! Karen may die! You may die! For what? For what?>

She laughed bitterly. <You think we can make peace between human and Yeerk and Andalite? Don't be stupid.>

<No, I don't think we can make peace between all humans and all Yeerks and all Andalites. But you and I can have peace. One Yeerk, one human.>

Aftran said nothing. But I could hear echoes of her thought. Back to the Yeerk pool. To hide among the other Yeerks. To try and disappear in the mass of slugs. To leave her host and never return.

Never to see again. Never to see blue, green, red. Never again to see the sun. Any sun.

Why? So some little human girl with green eyes could be free? "

from Animorphs

 

I'm through.

Daddy
by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You-- If I've killed one man, I've killed two-- The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. 12 October 1962

Hijab Awarness day

I have had a change of heart towards st.cloud mostly thanks to my friend Kristina, St.cloud is full of kind open minded people ..and sadly i let a few closed minded people cloud my vision of everyone else
we had Hijab Awareness day and i was flabbergasted my the shear amount of people who showed up and participated
thank you st.cloud students