Why Bernard Lewis is lame

Before I left for Lebanon, a teacher friend of mine gave me the hard back The Middle East by Bernard Lewis as a going-away present. At the time, I was working at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and knew that Bernard Lewis wrote a lot (because of the many books in the library) and had pro-Jewish leanings.

Somehow, I managed to drag it all the way to Lebanon, and I finally started it last night.

"The alphabet was a Middle Eastern invention, a vast improvement on the various systems of signs and pictures which preceded it, and which still prevail in some parts of the world. The Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabets are all derived from the first alphabet devised by the mercantile people of the Levant coast" (9).

Nowhere does he say Phoenician.

Having lived in Lebanon for the past four years, I am inundated with "Phoenician-ness." It seems that any world history text or any information source attributes the creation of the alphabet to the Phoenicians--"the mercantile people of the Levant coast" that Lewis refers to.

So why doesn't he say Phoenician? Is it because it sounds a lot like Palestinian???

In the first nine pages, Jews are mentioned four times. The first two show the similarities with Muslim religious beliefs and practices, concerning dress and prayer. The third makes a claim that Hebrew is the only ancient Middle Eastern language to be preserved. In the fourth, he writes that the Jewish refugees from Spain introduced the printing press to the Middle East.

So Bernard Lewis proudly hails the Jewish contributions to civilization, but can't seem to mention the Phoenician/Palestinian??? one.

What I think about Jane Austen

"To me, Poe's prose is unreadable–like Jane Austen's. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on a salary, but not Jane's."

I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was about ten. I remember finishing it–all proud and ready to show off–and not knowing at all what the book was about. When I was older, maybe fourteen, I decided to read it again, embarrassed that I couldn't talk about the book . . . and the same thing happened. I read it, and understood nothing.

And now after finding this quote by Mark Twain, my favorite American writer, I am completely vindicated. I felt stupid. But as Twain divulges, it wasn't me, it was her.

Child Labor--Looking for your suggestions

Mustafa, my neighbor, is 11 years old and quit school three months ago. He goes to work seven days a week at 7 in the morning, takes off from 2-3 for lunch, and then finishes around 7. He's a stacker at the local supermarket and makes $100 a month. 

This might sound shocking. But in my neighborhood, it's very common. I see kids everyday working. Our conversations go something like this. (Mind you, they're in Arabic.)

"Why aren't you in school?"

"I quit."

"Why?"

"School sucks. This (i.e. working) is better."

Sometimes there are other reasons. Like the Syrians or Egyptians don't know the system and don't have the right papers to enter the public school. (I'm working on this and contacting people who can give me accurate information so I can pass it along to them.)

But for the most part, the Lebanese education system doesn't work. The curriculum is too hard, and the teaching methods are antiquated.  The Lebanese like to praise themselves for having the best education in the Middle East. Lebanese people are known for having good English and good French. It's because of the "French system." A system, based on rote memorization and public humiliation, that the French reformed decades ago. All educational research proves that the methods don't work.

Maybe less than 1/3 of Lebanese people over the age of 20 have a high school diploma. The numbers actually are extremely difficult to find. An education professor at the American University of Beirut told me that those numbers aren't published.  In the US, 84% of adults have a high school diploma. The few high school graduates in Lebanon are really, really smart, maybe the smartest 10% of the population, or rich and somehow paid for it. A student has to have someone explain the lessons at home. Without educated parents or a tutor, most kids are doomed to fail.

I go to Mustafa's house at least three times a week to tutor his older brother, who's in 8th grade and is very weak in math. (Though the stuff he's studying is what I was taking as an advanced 9th grader.) He might have to repeat this year. Today, their mom and I visited the school and the teacher said that the youngest one, 7-year-old Yahya, will definately have to repeat the first grade.

I ask his parents, "Why don't you just keep Mustafa locked up all day in his room, with no television and no computer? After staring at the wall all day, he'll be begging to go to school." One of his parents are always at home.

"We can't. He will just run out and play. It's better for him to be at work and doing something."

I can't tell if they like having the extra income. His parents let him use $33 for spending money. The rest they use for the house. Because they are very poor, they won't even save it for his hopeful future schooling.

"So he's rewarded for not going to school. $33 a month is a lot for an 11-year-old."

But they say they can't convince him. He was kicked out of one school in the fifth grade, after repeatedly failing and then behaving badly.  He even started wetting his bed at night because he was so stressed out. The next school he went to didn't have a good playground or his old friends, so he just quit. He says he won't go back, and he knows a guy who's going to teach him how to work with aluminum, and that's what he's going to do for the rest of his life.

So here's the dilemma. 

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Scholarship for an Iraqi student

              One of my former students was accepted at the American University of Beirut for the upcoming school year. She moved to Lebanon in 2005 after spending a year in Jordan. She's from Iraq, and her house is across the Tigris River from Saddam Hussein's former palace which is now called the Green Zone. 

             Her parents are looking for scholarship money. Here are some of the e-mails her father wrote.

             UNESCO Office Beirut

             Dear Mr. Adel Moneim Osman,

       We are Iraqi family residence in Lebanon since 2005. My three children at  UCA in Aley school.

   

        My daughter has been accepted this month at AUB American University of Beirut for the academic year 2008-    2009.

         Her rating for the unfinished year up to last term is 85%.

        Could you kindly assist, finding the firm, which can offer her scholarship grant so that she could join AUB.

                    Very Truly Yours

Dear Mr. Mohsen,

Thank you for your email.

I regret to inform you that UNESCO does not have a budget to provide help in your case.

Regards

Abdel Moneim Osman
Director of UNESCO Regional Bureau for 
Education in the Arab States
UNESCO Representative to Lebanon & Syria
Beirut, Lebanon

Dear Dr. Abdel Moneim Osman,

     Thank you for answering, may you excuse me for my rude kibitzing for the most critical position in Iraq, and for hard situation for the most Iraqi people, and for  future of Iraqi sons and daughters, and for biggest crime of this era, consequences of Iraq invasion.

      May you allow me to ask you... why don't UNESCO in Beirut and in other near Iraqi countries such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt ask United Nation to create such budget for Iraqi student who have high rating to attend well known universities and colleges. This could be done form the Iraqi Oil Found.

       If this Iraq Oil Found does not support the education of Iraqi people. Is it fare enough that this found was only made to support  the military purpose(The Militias ) and the policemen (The gangs)??

       

        I would like to show my deep sorrow to you if my language was not as prudent perception as I wish.

        

            Very Truly Yours

Dear Friends and Relatives,

   Iraqi Students who live inside and outside Iraq needs direct support from the UNSECO , so that they could pay their expenses of the tuition fees.

          Iraq Oil Found at UN need to add UNESCO-Iraq to his priority so that they could handle Iraqi students educational requirement,  for graduate and post graduate education, supporting them for school ,college and university scholarships.

          UNHCR has good starting, for food and medicine. Therefore, the UNESCO-Iraq needs to do the same.

            If there is limited financial amount at Iraq Oil Found at UN, it would be better to reduce the support of Military and Police Forces which they have much corruption and to add it to UNESCO-Iraq.

         Hundreds of Billions of the US Fraud $$$ spends on Iraq war, and they keep spending corruptly, but for educational and for high educational system in Iraq, ………USA spend very little !!!!!!!!!

            Finally wish you the best.

           Very Truly Yours

Dear Friends and Relatives,

     Many of Iraqis retardation men and parties, who have much concern establishing their own militias, do not give much attention to education and cultures.

       For five long hard sever years, after American war on Iraq, it becomes suffering from terrorist, Militias gangs and with many other different names whether they are nationally, middle east, or internationally.

       These years of retardation, huge shortage in water supply and electricity power still effect daily and will continue several additional years.

         Due to chaos in education system in Iraq, there is much need for Salvage College and Universities from its calamity of the influence of militias on.                                      

        As you know the importance of education on the societies, the right and need of every human- being to have proper education.

         I look forward  to concern my consideration to add UNESCO-Iraq for Iraqi oil fund, so that UNSECO-Iraq could have budged to provide the satisfy need of education inside and outside Iraq, which the new educated generation , intellectual and sophisticated way  can go forward rebuild new Iraq.

               Very Truly Yours

        Dear Dr. Abdel Moneium Osman,

  The Iraqis who live outside Iraq may have supported to send their children to school, high school, college, and universities.

     We Iraqi reject that our Land treated as a milky cow putting Iraqi people restricted in a square between two jaws:

First: 

     Tardiness of many Iraqi parties who handling situation's deterioration, which they do not give much attention to education and high education system in Iraq.

Second:

     The Oil Cartel War Companies on Iraq, which they deal with Iraq as backyard to Washington D.C fighting terrorists of the Middle East on our home land with no sufficient protection to Iraqi people.

      We, the peaceful group of Iraqis, who live outside Iraq would like to educate our children in a proper way with no retardation no limits to education, we just wish making good start for new Iraq.

       Would you please, UNITED NATIONS and the organizations which linked with, could assist in this matter produce new future for new generation, and not deal with Iraq only as oily cow.

                                                     Very Truly Yours

The Western Media's Love Affair with the Chador

"At the same time, the Western press once again started to attack the 'fanaticism' of Islamic movements. An enthusiastic campaign was launched in defence of Iranian women condemned to the dark walls of the chador. Iran overnight became peopled by hundreds of thousands of women, impressive yet chilling as they stood clothed in their long black robes, while the incessant click of Western cameras carried this medieval sight to millions of readers all over the world. Yet this enthusiasm for women's rights, or even human rights, was sadly lacking when thousands of Iranian men and women were being shot to death by army guns, or assassinated or tortured in the underground cells of the Savak, or when a whole people--men, women and children-was forced to flee its land to settle in the tents of refugee camps, or when peaceful populations were being burnt to death with napalm or torn to pieces by cluster bombs."

Nawal El Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (London: Zed Press, 1979), pp. vii-viii.

What I think about Hillary

". . . modernization processes in the West sometimes bestow 'equal rights' on that small minority of women belonging to the middle or upper classes. These find their way into business or the liberal professions and may even become Members of Parliament or Ministers. . . they perpetuate inequality between men and women by masking the real situation and affording a pretence of change, whereas in fact no real change has taken place."

Nawal El Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (London: Zed Press, 1979), p. x.

Talking Politics (on the 60th Anniversary of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine)

Here in Lebanon, I feel like I see things from all sides, having befriended people from all the religious sects, and having lived in three different neighborhoods, representing three of the major sects. I’m not with any political party. Actually, I’m against all of them. There’s no one I support. They’re all power-hungry thugs.

So then, can I be like this when it comes to Israel? I make it pretty obvious where I stand on this. When I’m in the US and especially New York or around my fellow former Harvard classmates, it comes up way too much. Here, in Lebanon, it’s a non-issue. I don’t have to explain or defend myself. Everybody, no matter what her background, is on the same page.

Isn’t it silly to make politics so important? To have it be something that could divide people. Here in Lebanon, it’s obvious how political leanings lead to violence. But when I’m in the US, I experience a kind of violence, also. When I talk to people who are “educated” who really think Israel is justified in its policies, I feel under attack. It’s one of the things I hate most about being in the US.

I ask myself: Are these people completely ignorant or do they just not have souls? Of course, I want to think it’s the former. Can I blame people who are only fed the Western media? Maybe they just don’t know any better? But then I think, Daaaag, they have fancy college degrees and have fancy professional jobs. Some people get paid a lot to be consultants and lawyers, to do research and analysis, which means they should have some understanding of world events and issues. And yet, I know people who have all these qualifications and still think that Israel is justified in its ethnic cleansing policies. (They, of course, don’t call it ethnic cleansing.)

My friend, one of those NYC law-firm lawyers, says that the brainwashing/propoganda is non-stop. He goes to fancy dinners and events all the time, and gets his heartstrings pulled as to the sad situation of Israelis who have to live with the constant threat of terrorism. Of course, after September 11, they have a receptive audience in NYC.

Oh wait, back to the issue. Can I put myself in their shoes? Let’s see. Being educated in the US, I’ve read a very good amount of Holocaust literature (The Chosen in 7th Grade, The Diary of Anne Frank in 8th grade, Night, Survival in Auschwitz, Maus). It’s like it’s in my blood. But did I ever read anything about Al Nakba (it means catastrophe in Arabic–the Palestinian version of 1948)? Were there any excerpts by Arabs, Palestinians or Arab-Americans in the school anthologies when I was a student? (Today there are.) Every time I visited Washington, D.C., about four times in my life, I visited the Holocaust Museum. I wanted to. It’s important. My first day at Harvard, a Jewish kid who lived downstairs from me, tried to indoctrinate me with the whole party line (after he found out I was Jewish.) It goes something like this:

1) We’re a small speck in a sea of Arabs who hate us and want to decimate us at any given moment.

2) Everyone else hates us and have tried to ethnically cleanse us throughout history. We’ve never been welcome anywhere.

3) We worked so hard tilling the desert and set up the best military and spy network in the world and miraculously (1967) managed to carve out a small space for ourselves.

4) And anyways, you’re a Christian. You know that God promised us this land.

Christian Zionism makes me ashamed to call myself Christian, and it’s not even theologically Christian anyways. According to my reading of the Bible, the chosen people are those who follow Jesus, who come from any racial or ethnic background. Our Promised Land is not a specific piece of earth; our inheritance and home is in heaven.

Am I big hypocrite? Am I really looking at all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian issue? I like to think so. I have all kinds of information. I’ve made a rational decision based on collecting and evaluating different evidence.

What is this evidence? First, look at news sources that aren’t American. Second, talk to the Palestinians you know. (Do you think they’re all liars?) My American friend who lived in the West Bank throughout the 80s (during the first intifada) talks about:

• Israeli soldiers stopping little kids with plastic bags. Because Israel had banned schools, neighborhoods set up home-school networks. If kids had books, they’d be sent back home.

• Having to break curfew one night to get her kids medicine, a teen-aged Israeli soldier was high and started yelling at her. When she flicked him off in response, he almost shot her. She was saved by his friend who pushed him back.

• A “break your bones” policy where Israel soldiers would come in the middle of the night, pull men from their houses, and beat them up. One night, they let up on her husband because she was really loud and bitchy and American.

More commonly cited features of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, include:

• A landscape completely divided by roadblocks and checkpoints. People can’t visit their relatives in neighboring villages. What should be 10-15 minute trips take hours. People can’t get to their jobs.

• A deliberate policy of bulldozing and burning thousands of ancient olive trees, which symbolize the land and roots of the people. The Israeli Defense Force justifies itself in its need to “build settlements, expand roads and lay infrastructure.” Besides the fact that they are a major commercial crop which many families depend on for their livelihood.

• Humiliation, physical and verbal abuse.

There are only a million documentaries and books on the subject. Go to your public library. I highly recommend Palestine by Joe Sacco. Get some factsheets from http://endtheoccupation.org/. For some information and analysis about media bias, go to http://www.doublestandards.org/biaspale.html and http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/. Any Internet search will bring up all kinds of first-hand accounts and photos of the situation. This is not difficult or hard-to-find evidence. It’s just that some people don’t want to see it.

Israeli policy towards its Palestinian population is very bad, and the US should not support it. US policy in the Middle East is very bad, and it needs to change. US domestic policy that keeps more than 1% of its population (the highest in the world) in prison is a sore human rights violation.

People get offended when I talk about Israel. I get offended that these people haven’t looked at very clear and abundant evidence or have an agenda to obfuscate it. I get offended when people justify, support, and propogate basic human rights abuses.

Visiting Ishraka in Prison

Tuesday, I went to the Adlieh prison to visit Ishraka, a Sudanese/Eritrean woman from my church. She's been there for 20 days. The month before, she was in the all-women's prison in Verdun with her two-year-old son. When they moved her to Adlieh, they made her son leave. He is now staying with her Sudanese friend in the Mar Elias Palestinian camp where she's been living.

Two months ago, an Ethiopian woman came to Ishraka seeking help, having run away from the house where she was contracted to work. The girl had a phone and needed money, so they went to the neighboring phone shop and sold it to the man. The run-away's "mister" called the phone. When the man from the shop answered it, he told him where the girl was staying. The police came to Ishraka's house. The girl, however, had run away. Ishraka was picked up for not having legal papers. They took her and her son to the Verdun prison.

Last week another American woman went to go visit her at Verdun. But there was a problem--no one seemed to have her name or know where she was. After talking to as many people as she could, Debbie left in frustration. She called the pastor of the church who called Caritas. Caritas has established a special "watch-dog" group for this specific issue. Foreigners are taken to prison, and somehow get lost in the system. Sometimes people languish for months and even years because the authorities "forget" or "lose" them.

With the help of Caritas and another lawyer-advocacy group, Frontiers, they found that Ishraka had been transferred to Adlieh. I was the first person to visit her from the church, probably her first visitor altogether.

The prison is located under a bridge that serves as a highway. (During the July 2006 War, this was a big problem. The government had to figure out what to do with all these people when Israel was bombing all the major highways and bridges.) When I got there, I asked the General Security man where the nearest shop was. I bought her a gallon of water, bananas, apples, chocolate, Nescafe, and biscuite (cookies). When I returned, there was a long line.

The Egyptian man next to me told me I could go straight up to the front since I was Lebanese.

"Ana mish lubnaneye." And in that moment, I felt proud and happy that I wasn't Lebanese, that I wasn't part of a group that so often treats dark-skinned people like animals.

"Then what are you?"

I sighed, "Amerikaneye." That didn't make me proud either.

"Well, you don't have to wait here."

"That's fine. I'll wait."

He nodded and said, "America is like that. You have laws and systems. Everyone is subject to the same laws. It doesn't matter who you are. Here everything is wasta (connections)."

"Yep," feeling kind of proud of my background, but then deciding to fill him in about Guantanamo.

We talked some more. It turns out he was visiting a Sri Lankan woman who had been there for a couple months. Her husband and three kids were back in Sri Lanka, and if she doesn't constantly send them money, they don't eat. The man in line met her two years ago, while she patronized his corner shop.

I was so touched. Here he was--a man just helping out a family-less foreign woman, bringing her bags of stuff.

A couple of General Security guys walked by, and asked why I was waiting in line. "Lebanese can go straight up to the front."

"Ana mish lubnaneye."

Same third-degree set of questions. About five minutes later, they yelled at me to come to the front. The Sanyoura government likes to kiss up to the U.S. They're always trying to make us happy. (Not like Syria, who gives Americans a hard time.)

"Why do I get to come up to the front?"

"Do you want to wait in line?" The General Security guy retorted sarcastically.

"How long is it going to take?"

"At least an hour."

So I handed over my Texas Driver's License and a photocopy of my passport. They found her name in the book and registered my name.

After another fifteen minutes, I was herded down the stairs with about 20 other men, more than half of whom were Egyptian. We stood behind a metal perforated sheet with metal bars in front of it and a plastic window. The guards moved me out of the middle of the pack to the end where there was an open window, so I could look directly inside.

This made it much easier to talk to Ishraka when she came out. She was wearing a long red shawl that covered her head and her arms, a very Muslim/African sort of dress which I never recalled her wearing at church.

She cried when she saw me, and couldn't believe that I came to visit her.

"I am very, very sad here."

I asked about her son. She said her friend doesn't have a phone where I could call her. But my pastor's wife knows where she lives so I could go to the camp and track down her son--maybe take some pictures and a video and show it to her.

Then I asked what she needed.

Pijamas with long sleeves, shirts, bra, and underwear. Soap, Colgate, shampoo, Kotex. Picon (processed cheese), biscuits. Of course, the most important thing is water. An English Bible, and L.L. 20,000 ($13.33) for a phone card.

"There are many, many foreigners here."

"Are there any believers? Are you praying?"

"Yes, there are many Ethiopians." And she shrugged. I couldn't tell if that meant she was praying with anyone inside the prison.

The guards announced that the time was up. Since I was standing in front of the one open window, all the men came over and practically pounced on me. As I moved back, they started shoving their grocery bags and water gallons through the window. After pushing my stuff through, I told her, "God bless you and keep you". And then I walked up the stairs, and through the line of Egyptians, Nepalese, Ethiopians, and other foreigners.

Yeah, I felt guilty about my special treatment. But hey, I had to get to work, just like these people. Wouldn't they have gone up to the front of the line and avoided the hour long wait if they had the chance? Something else to feel guilty about. I guess I prefer guilt to depression, rage, and powerlessness in the face of injustice.

Things are back to "normal"

Yesterday, I went to Hamra. There weren't that many vans, and some of the roads were still closed. At one road closing, there were three 13-year old boys, who seemed to be controlling the roadblock. They weren't Army or police or anything. I asked the taxi driver who they were, and I didn't understand any of his Arabic. In certain situations, I push it, and fuddle through the explanation with my bad Arabic. But I didn't feel like giving away my American-ness, so I just dropped it.

Last night, when the government announced it would take back its decisions to shut down Hezbollah's phone network and force their security guy from his job at the airport, my whole neighborhood exploded. Crazy gun shots. I have some video. Hopefully, some day I'll get to a connection where I can post it.

Today, all the roads are supposed to be open. Schools are back in session. Hopefully, it's all over.

Thanks to all you guys who were writing and expressing your concern. I really, really appreciate it.

I just talked to Rola

She and her husband are staying in Aitat tonight. All the women and children have evacuated the village. Her kids are staying with her sister. It’s only the men who are there. She doesn’t want to leave her husband by himself. She hopes she can convince him to leave. “It’s suicide staying here.”

Aitat is between Keyfoun and Aimatiye—two Hizbollah arsenals. Rola wants the world to know that the Druze people of Aitat are not armed and that their political party, the Ishtirakiye/PSP led by Walid Jumblatt, have not given them any weapons.

She knows her husband won’t leave though. “His whole life is here. Everything he’s worked for–his house, his business. He’s not going anywhere.”

They’re praying that the truce will hold. They’re scared.

How crappy is it to say to your friend, “I’m praying for you. I love you.” I can easily take two vans and be at her house in an hour. I do this all the time. And now all I can do is talk to her on the phone. And blog. She was happy to know that I can tell the world about what is happening. When you’re holed up in your house, thinking you could die, it might be some consolation to know that at least the world knows and that someone cares.