Media in Iran, When no one like what the people think...

     Few weeks ago the official Iranian media Chanel al alam  proposed  a pole on its web page .the pole was in form of question that people would respond to by clicking yes or no.The question was as follow. Do you support the suspension  of the whole nuclear program in exchange for the suspension  of  the international sanction posed against the country? The results of the pole were quite interesting 64 percent of the participants replied that they would support the suspension stopping of the whole nuclear project  ,but what was more interesting is that the channel withdraw  the pole and its results without any fore notice.

      This matter revealed the hypocrisy of the Iranian authorities who says that the Iranians are  ready to sacrifice everything for the program because  is a symbol if dignity and national pride.The Iranian official media keep repeating day and night that nuclear project is a choice of the nation and so the nation is welling to do all it takes to make it go well. Now we can easily notice that the Iranian people have nothing to do with it and they are more concerned with the betterment of their own  lives. The Iranian people want the income of their oil to be spent on the development of their country instead of financing terrorist groups under the label of liberation Palestine.

      The nuclear project itself is nothing but a choice of a bunch of day-dreaming hardliners who want to divert people attention  form the internal issues  that Iran is living toward the west. It is certain that the Iranian authorities are benefiting from this conflict with the west ,all economic difficulties are blamed on the west and the iranian people are forced to team up with a government that they may not like simply because they feel that the whole country is in danger.this matter poses a serious question over the effectiveness of the international sanction ,however this pole tells us a lot about what is really happening in Iran.

الارتزاق باسم الصحراء

في إطار اهتمامي بقضية الصحراء المغربية و التطورات التي تشهدها لاحظت و جود ظاهرة غربية يمكني تسميتها بظاهرة الارتزاق باسم الصحراء.يبدو إننا نشهد تكالب مجموعة من الطفيليين على المغرب باسم الدفاع عن مغربية الصحراء رغم انها مغربية و ستبقى مغربية ولو طارت معزة.هؤلاء المناضلين الدين  لايعرفون شيء عن النضال و كل ما يعرفونه عن قضية الصحراء هو نتيجة بحت سريع على الانترنيت لم يتطلب سوى خمس دقائق

المرتزقة الدين جالو وساحوا في العالم  بأموال الشعب الغربي و حولو مؤسسات الدولة إلى وكالة أسفار تتولى دفع فواتير الفنادق الفخمة التي يقيمون فيها.بالطبع فإنهم يحتاجون فنادق خمس نجوم لكي يرتاحوا بعد الوقت الطويل الذي يقضونه قي الدفاع عن الصحراء المغربية.متى يدرك وطننا الحبيب و القائمون عليه أن قضية الصحراء تحل في ملعب القوى الكبري ولا فائدة من إطعام وإنفاق الامول على بعض المتسولين الدين يلبسون ثياب الحقوقيين والإعلاميين.

لقد حضرت  المؤتمرات التي تدعي معالجتها لقضية الصحراء ولكني صرت امقتها  فكلها تبدا بتوجيه السباب للبوليزاريو و تختتم بالسباب فما أسهل السباب و ما أصعب العمل.بطبيعة الحال كل هده المؤتمرات تقام في العاصمة الرباط او في مراكش على ابعد حد فكما تعلمون هؤلاء المناضلون غير متعودين على لهيب الصحراء و حرارتها.حتى أولائك الدين يذهبون الى عمق الاقليم الجنوبية فان دهابهم لايعدو ان يكون جولة سياحية. و على اي حال فاينما عقدت هاته المؤتمرات فهي لا تتجاوز كونها مناسبة لملء البطون بالطعام واهدار اموال الفقراء.

كما ان هناك ريع اقتصادي و فلاحي فيبدو ان هناك ريع حقوقي وعلى المغاربة الاستيقاظ وسحب البساط من تحت اقدام المتطفلين و المتسلقين و المتسولين على ابوب السفارات

Can You Prove you are not Gay?

Such question may have been crazy few years ago but now every male should think of a way to prove he is not gay. The news of the homosexuality test run by the ministry of justice Lebanon may force us to reconsider such question.

In 20 th  July More that 30 men were arrested inside a cinema by the Vice Squad   after some allegation that immoral acts are committed there. The men were taken to near by police station. The arrest itself was not something important but rather what follows. The men were forced the go through the tests intended to prove their homosexuality. The men could have refused, but no one knew that or dared to say no.

Many Human rights organizations appealed to the Justice Ministry urging it to end the of conducting these test ,saying that they are nothing but torture.I tend to think that this test is nothing but torture covered by the name of physical examination, and everyone should appose it. It does not matter if you are for or against homosexuality. This test should be put to an end. One person who is severely against homosexuality may say that those men got what they deserve, but one have to think twice. Maybe one day he would go in argument with a police officer, and so the officer would tell him you look gay and we may have to make you go through the test. You cannot prove that you are not gay buy saying so, you have to go through the test.

              

Many other crazy government  in the middle east are considering conducting such test ,in Lebanon there is homosexuality test in Egypt they have come up with a test called virginity test. a man have to prove that he is not gay , a woman have to prove she is a virgin so what’s next ,what this world is going to?

The Policies of Getting Heard

Few weeks ago I have been reading an article in Al Jadid magazine. The article talks about the Arab-American writers and the problems they face in getting their works published. I remember that the article was entitled by (the policies of getting published). I think the article would have been more expressive it as entitled by –the policies of getting heard.

The Arab American writers who are supposed to know more about themselves and their world “what ever that means” and so They should be more capable of representing their world more correctly. They only problem those people have is that they are not getting hear and published. Surprisingly enough other books with crazy titles like the (subjection of women in the Middle East) are the best sellers’ books in the country. Libraries make sure that such books are place in the front shelves and magazines make sure that every one knows about them. Of course I am not saying that women in the middle east are all having good time and all they do is partying because they are not. The west has always been interested in speaking on behalf of the rest and making sure that the east doesn’t speak back.

The same way men have been interested in talking on behalf of women and associating them with certain attributes such as weakness, sensitivity. The west have been interested in speaking of behalf of the other and giving them certain attributes such as exotism ,sensuality.. Such attributes justified all the horrible things of colonialism. Indeed it is up to the colonized ,(not the ex-colonized) to speak on behalf of themselves and say what they think about themselves and how they should be viewed.

                                                                                            Ouhemmou Mohammed

The story of Isaac.

The story of Isaac.

Few days ago seven Israeli innocent tourists have been killed in Bulgaria after a suicide attack on their bus. Those people have been killed for the simple reason that they have the citizenship of a certain country. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah and Iran of committing the crime. The attack can never be seen out side the context of Arab-Israeli conflict. The ramifications of this conflict seem have extended to every single part of the world only with few exceptions.

Away from all this gloomy news about suicide attacks and boomings, a small village Sixty kilometer away from the city of Agadir in Morocco seems to make another type of news.  The village is made up mainly of Berber population, although there are some Arabs. One cannot, but notice the poverty of the people of this town, and clearly see that they are fighting to earn their very day living. What is interesting about this town is not the well of its people to survive, but rather how they treat each other. The town boasts of having few Jewish families still living there.

The news about some Jewish families living in some small town in north Africa would have been boring, but if you consider the experience of the Jews in the Arab world, this town would seem to you utopia. The lives of the Jews in the Arab world can be described by everything except being peaceful. Just few kilometers away from away from this town, the Jews in Algeria had a different life ,just after independence their number dropped from to 40.000 into ziro just ine few years.For some reason this town seems to be immune from all the hatred that is hovering around in the area.

Isaac is the father of one of families living in this village. Before I talked to him I expected that he would be telling me stories about his fight to survive in this hostile area or the reconciliations and compromises he makes so he can co-exist with his Muslim neighbors, but I was mistaken. Isaac s life seems to be so normal that is boring, his life contains no stories about epic fights for survival and running a way from massacres. He might be the last one you would think of writing a story about. He wakes up in the morning have his breakfast goes to work then gets back at the afternoon for lunch and so on. His life is very ordinary, but as they say, out of the ordinary come the extraordinary.

Isaac is making jewelries He speaks Hebrew, Arabic, French and Berber, so he could communicate with a lot of people, although this town was isolated and very few tourists came to the area and so he really didn’t get the chance to practice his French. Maybe the villages is living in such peace because of its isolation, I mean news inciting media content.  In this village there is no place for derogatory words to refer to Jews or any cranky jokes about them. For some unknown reason the people of this village fail to recognize that they are different. Those people are so busy with enhancing their own lives that they don’t have time to pay attention to their differences.

One would make the assumption that those people have takes extensive courses in cultural diversity or some thing like that. One would think that they have learned to be tolerant are culturally sensitive, but it is not the case.  Ironically Many of them say they tolerance has nothing to do with their situation. “For a start we don’t have anything to tolerate and second you have to have problem so I can have tolerance, but we don’t have problems. I don’t know what I mean by cultural sensitivity but I know that we don’t see each other as different so we don’t have to be sensitive towards each other.”

Militainment :The Collaboration between Hollywood and the Pentagon

 The Collaboration between Hollywood and the Pentagon

The relationship between Hollywood and the U.S military was something that always raised many questions. People could clearly detected that the military is interfering in filmmaking, but no one could define how. Many critics say that the army is providing high-tech and military equipments for Hollywood in return for a good representation of the army in movies. It was not till the late days that this relationship became so rude and bold that when watching a movie makes one fells like he is watching recruiting ads.

The collaboration between Hollywood and the pentagon is something that goes back in history. The founding of Hollywood Anti-Nazi league was said to be done after a sign from the U.S military. The filmmakers who belonged to the league contributed to the making of many films demeaning the Germans, such as “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” and  “The Mortal Storm.”. the U.S military have been very supportive of wartime propaganda ,even the president Roosevelt himself “engaged Hollywood writers, producers, animators, and directors to create works intended to direct popular sentiments toward a government-approved opinion of our enemies ”.especially after the finding of the bureau of motion pictures.

During the cold war Hollywood have been very active in denouncing the soviet union policies both on the internal level and the external level. Producing movies to the forging market to win the heart and the mind of people around the world. Between the year 1960 and 1970 more then 20 movie was produced and displayed in public squares in the many middle eastern cities, like Baghdad .Such movie were not financially successful but that did pot matter since making money was not the objective

The collaboration lasted till our present day and  like (independence day , fighters ..)were produced. The objective of such movies is to positively represent the military and make the army or the navy interesting for the youth. The problem is that many young fellows will buy the crape Hollywood sells them. They all think that the military is all about having fun, shooting guns and hunting the bad guys. The problem is that they go to the battlefield it is not like video game where you get resurrected by a click. When the sky rains mortar shells and Ak bullets , they will say this is not what we have signed for.

After all it seems that it is the only way to do things since no one wants to see the dark side of the American military. I mean depicting pictures of American soldiers with their legs or hands shopped off or in coffins. No one wants to watch movies about Abu graib or Guantanamo simply because it is not fun.

In the past years we used to have actors who served in the military, but now who have soldiers who serve in the movies. In the past we had great movie stars who served in the army, like Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Ted Knight, Kirk Douglas, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Rock Hudson, Charles Bronson, Werner Klemperer, Audie Murphy. In the movie act of valor active-duty military personnel have been working the production of the movies. The collaboration between Hollywood the the U.S military seems to have moved from giving some equipments or even military advisors into providing with active-duty soldiers. Such act will certainly make people unable to decide whether they are watching a movie or recruiting ads for the military. The line between the real and imaginary will also grow vague and am afraid that some people will even get the impression that war is all fun..

أنصاف الثورات

في الأيام الأخيرة صرنا نسمع كثيرا كلمة الثورة المصرية الثورة اليمنية.الاستعمال المفرط لهده الكلمة أدى إلى استرخاصها و فقدانها لقيمتها المعنوية.

ادا كان ما نقصده بالثورة هي جمع عدد كبيرا من البشر في مكان واحد البدا بالنعيق آو ما يسمى رفع المطالب ادن ما حدت في مصر هو حتما ثورة  لكن المشكل أنها لن تكون مختلفتا عن مهرجانات نانسي عقرب .ادا كان مانقصده بالثورة هو المخرجات أو النتائج أي إسقاط التضام القائم و إحلال نضام جديد فان ماحدت في مصر حتما ليس ثورة

في الجلسة الاولى لمحاكمة الرئيس اللا مبارك كان التلفزيون المصري يعنون الحدت ب مصر تحاكم رئيسها. ما اتار انتباهي هو كلمة رئيسها وليس نضامها.بامكاني القول إن ما سقط في مصر هو الرئيس و ليس النضام و لا ادل على دلك من ان الفلول مازالو يتمتعون بالتاتير. كنت من الدين اللدين يعتقدون ان النضام في مصرر هرمي و بالتالي فان ضرب راس الهرم سسؤدي الى انهيار الهرم بالكامل.

ادا استحضرنا متال الثورة الفرنسية فان مشاهدها لم تكن سوى عبارة عن مجموعات من الرعاع و الفلاحين الغاضبين يحملون 

الفؤوس و المعاول مقتحمين القصور و الكنائس بحيت يقتلون كل من يقف في طريقهم. على الرغم من كل الفظائع التي ارتكبها التوار 

الفرنسيون فان العالم اليوم يقف تكريما و إجلالا لهم لسبب بسيط ألا و هو أنهم حققوه النتائج. باستناء الحقيقة الواضحة بان التاريخ 

يكتبه المنتصرون و في هده الحالة كتبه التوار يبدو ان العالم مستعد لتجاهل بعض الفضاعات مادامت النتائج مقبولة.ليس مطلوبا من 

التورات ان تتبت انها تورة شيك بل المطلوب هو النتائج وتحقيق المطالب.