Category Archives: Viva!

المتاهة والانجراف الفلسطيني شعبا وحكومة الى واقع سحيق  

نادية حرحش

 

تجول برأسي مشاهد ذلك البرنامج التلفزيوني الياباني ربما، الذي كان يدخل المتسابقون فيه بأعداد كبيرة نحو مراحل كثيرة من ضمنها متاهات وتسلق وغوص وقفز ومكائد ومصائد، حتى يصل البعض الى خط النهاية .

حالنا يشبه مرحلة ما من تلك المسابقة، حيث يدخل المتسابقون في متاهة ومن يستطيع الخروج منها لا يلبث يفرح حتى يجد نفسه واقع في حفرة طينية ،يظنها من فرط الصدمة عميقة ستلتهمه .

حال الشعب يشبه حال المتسابقين المهرولين للمرحلة القادمة. مرحلة مبهمة عبثية فوضوية. الكل دخلها مع هدف واضح ومحدد ، ليجد نفسه في متاهة لا يعرف لما دخل ولما هو هناك اصلا وماذا يفعل .

متاهتنا التي تشمل الكثير من الامور العالقة والسابحة والخانقة، الممتلئة بالحفر ،قبل الوصول الى الحفر الطينية ان وصلناها ، من غياب الحكم الرشيد اولا ، الى ازمة الضمان الاجتماعي اخيرا….

بين غياب حكم رشيد وبين تيهنا بأزمات تلو الازمات لاجتذاذ بعض الحقوق او الحصول على بعض الماكسب تقع مشكلتنا…

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Palestinians create seed bank to save their farming heritage in the Holy Land’s hills | World news | The Guardian

In the rocky hills of the Palestinian West Bank, farmers learned long ago how to adapt to extremes of climate that make spring the shortest season. In a part of the world where agriculture was first practised, they found crops that could survive even if watered only by the occasional rain storm. But a form of farming that informed both Palestinian culture and identity – seeping into the language, songs and sayings – has increasingly come under threat from a combination of factors, including manmade climate change, the incursion onto Palestinian land by Israeli settlement, and agricultural companies’ marketing of hybrid varieties to farmers. Now, however, an initiative is being launched to save Palestine’s agricultural plant heritage, with the first seed bank dedicated to preserving traditional varieties used by farmers for generations – before they vanish for ever. The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library – to be formally launched in June – is part of an effort both to educate Palestinians about traditional forms of agriculture in the Holy Land, which are in danger of being forgotten, and about the culture associated with them. The seed library will preserve “heirloom” varieties particularly adapted to the West Bank. Supported by the Qattan Foundation, the project is the brainchild of Vivien Sansour, who studied and worked abroad before returning to the West Bank city of Beit Jala.

Source: Palestinians create seed bank to save their farming heritage in the Holy Land’s hills | World news | The Guardian

Turkey’s ‘Campus Witches’ take on sexual harassers – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

In a newspaper interview, Campus Witches co-founder Meral Cinar painted a gloomy picture even for young urban women, describing how the group formed in 2013. “I was one of five female students in an engineering class with 80 males. The professors would address the males as they lectured. Then, there would be off-color jokes and obscenities,” she said. Cinar added, “We were facing harassment in the dorms as well. The security guards would draw up rankings or top 10 lists of the prettiest girls according to room number. At Ege University [in Izmir], the lane to the subway station was unlit, and all the women passing through there would be harassed. Mersin University has the same problem. Two female students were murdered [in unlit areas]. All those reasons led us to take action to try to create an atmosphere where women can express themselves freely on campus.”

Source: Turkey’s ‘Campus Witches’ take on sexual harassers – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

The Best Oscar Picture ever Taken

boffo

matteringsofmind

Social media, the press and the whole damn internet is awash with pictures on the subject of the Oscars.  They are mostly, always the same picture, only reinhabited by different players from last year, and the years before that.  There are the official ones: Recipients holding the Oscar statues like golf trophies, then there are the candid chating amongst themselves images that are like shooting fish in a barrel type photography.  Point a camera at a Hollywood party, you can’t miss.  But  every now and then there is a considered, imaginative, intimate portrait of an Oscar Winner.  There are not many taken like this in the few days of the Oscars,  probably it’s a matter of access.  Security is so tight that almost no one can speak to anyone without a special pass.

When I think about the Oscars, my mind oftens turns to a picture taken in 1971 of…

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Prince Rogers Nelson – Dead at 57 | 3CHICSPOLITICO

These are posts you never want to write. What is there to say?There is so much to say.I haven’t been this sucker punched, since I heard about Michael Jackson.Prince was part of my youth.Prince was part of my Blackness.Prince expanded my horizons as to what it means to be a ‘Black Artist’.There is so much more that we can say.Please say it in this thread.

Source: Prince Rogers Nelson – Dead at 57 | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Islam … between the poles of Arabs and others

نادية حرحش

As I am still reflecting on my trip to Nigeria, I found myself tuned in my thoughts about the global reality that we live in. How interestingly things are connected, yet sadly, in a bad way. I would have wished for this aspect of globalization in how the globe interacts would be more of positiveness. However, it remains important and useful to see the resemblance.

Being a Muslim, maybe the reason of my certain observations, and in many ways, the resemblance that occurred must be that of Islamic.

I was highly impressed and humbled by the Muslim people I had the chance to meet over there. My discourse has never been that of racism and religious provocations, and yet, I feel I need to write about that side of how Islam or Muslims are treated in a country that Muslims form more than half of its population, and are obviously…

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How To Handle The Disgusting Smell and Mosquitoes Overtaking Beirut

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Pic via Mawtoura. Pic via Mawtoura.

Here it unfolds, the worst chapter in the non-ending story of the Lebanese garbage crisis. Don’t be fooled, the crisis is far from over. The governmental “solution” is so short-sighted and non-sensical that the crisis is bound to be repeated if not in 60 days, then in a few months or years. This is how we do things in this country: we put band-aids on gaping wounds, without making sure that the wound itself has actually been stabilized enough to be managed with band-aids; we do makeup coverups for problems that need hardcore fixes.

Perhaps nothing exemplifies how short-sighted and lala-landish our government is than the Minister of Environment tweeting (then deleting) a few days ago that the wave of mosquitoes and flies the likes of which this country has not seen in recent memory is due to nothing other than the heat. He then subsequently blocked…

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London protests see thousands march against Prime Minister Cameron, spending cuts – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Will Jeremy Corbyn demand Cameron resign?

Tens of thousands of people march through London in protest against government spending cuts, with some activists demanding Prime Minister David Cameron’s resignation over his family’s offshore finances.

Source: London protests see thousands march against Prime Minister Cameron, spending cuts – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)