It is the Christmas Season.

These days mean different things to different people. I don’t want to talk about the commercialization of the season.  Let’s set that aside for now.

Whether you believe in the Christian story — the birth of our lord Jesus Christ — or you believe in the Pagan story — a celebration during the darkest days (i.e. winter solstice), either way, the root is the same:  these days speak of hope, of light, of ease of spirit, of love, and, fundamentally, of faith: faith that tomorrow will be better, tomorrow will be brighter…

So for these few days, we bow our heads — to a God, to the magical beauty of Nature — and to the gentle and strong bond of love between family and friends, and the potential of love between strangers.

For these few days, we remind our hearts that hope, faith, is the driving force, the fuel of love, of our todays and tomorrows.

So, in hope, in faith, in solidarity, I wish you all a season of love, and of a coming Spring that would lead us closer to liberation — liberation from occupation, from capitalism, and from irrationality.  A coming Spring that would lead us closer to the beauty that we can be

There is a great deal I have wanted to write about over the past few months, from the farce of the US elections (choice between Pepsi and Coca Cola) and the repression of real choices by refusing third parties access to the debates, to the ongoing civil rights and democratic struggles in Egypt and Lebanon and Bahrain…, to, of course, the ongoing — yes ongoing — assault against Palestinians (Gaza and otherwise). I tweeted on those issues, and you all can follow me on tweet at: https://twitter.com/rania_masri

What I am discussing here is what I cannot discuss on twitter: a speech I recently gave to the League of Arab States (LAS).

This past Sunday (December 2), I gave a 30 minute presentation to the Ministers of Social Affairs at the LAS on MDG goals with respect to “Palestine.”  What is MDG? See here: Millennium Development Goals.  I put Palestine in quotation marks because I was asked to give a talk on MDG goals (status and challenges) in Palestine but I was told to only speak about the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  I could not speak about Ramle or Haifa or Jaffa or Safad or any of the other.  Thus I would not be speaking about Palestine.  The West Bank and Gaza Strip, regardless how beautiful they are, do not constitute Palestine and will never constitute Palestine.

Here is the paper I submitted – in Arabic – can be accessed here (here)

and here is the paper in English –here

I raised two questions that remained (naturally) unanswered:

(1) Why must there be a need for tunnels between besieged Gaza and Egypt? Why can’t the borders be open, if we truly regard both lands as Arab, if we claim to stand with Palestinians?

(2) What is the objective of the League of Arab States: to place bandages or to work for the liberation of the land and the end of apartheid?

…

Sadly, the Palestinian Minister spoke of the great Arab efforts in Palestine. Yet, when I asked her to name one tangible thing the Arab governments have done, she could give no example.

As I told her: if words could liberate Palestine, we would be in Haifa.

 

From the excellent Jadaliya and Visualizing Palestine:

“Take ANY city in the world and cut it off from its hinterland and then try to organize “automonous” water supply within and for the city! No, city, I repeat, no city in the world would be able to survive.”  –C. Messerschmid to Visualizing Palestine

“The Gaza Strip is in its sixth year of siege, in the twenty-first year of closure and the forty-sixth year of occupation. The Coastal Aquifer, shared with Israel is its only accessible source of water, polluted at ninety to ninety-five percent. Decades of (systematic) de-development and, since 2007, persisting restrictions on material and equipment entry means maintenance works are on hold. In 2008-2009, Israeli military attacks — Operation Cast Lead — aggravated the damage to wells along with other deliberate and wanton (Goldstone) human and infrastructural losses. Scarcity of water sources have resulted in the over-abstraction of water, accelerating natural brackish water inflows from the southeast (Negev) and seawater intrusions from the west (Mediterranean). Electricity cuts contribute to the pollution of water due to sewage interruptions on sewage treatment. Twenty-six percent of illnesses in the Gaza Strip are water related. Gaza Water Confined and Contaminated communicates the tip of the iceberg.”

 

Amidst the US drones, amidst the ongoing and escalating talk of war and sanctions against Iran, amidst the growing war in Syria, amidst the horrific occupation of Palestine

Amidst the GMOs and Monsanto crimes against farmers

Amidst it all…

I share this questionnaire from Wendell Berry

[that picture: http://www.unartforpeace.org/e/2762 is from a child from Pakistan]

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons. …

2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do? Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favourite evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without. 

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.

that picture: http://www.unartforpeace.org/e/5581 is from a Palestinian child in Lebanon

There is much that to be said in the aftermath of the bombing Friday afternoon in Beirut.

I can speak of the tendency to elevate the killed public figures to sainthood, and then use their deaths for political objectives.

I can speak of the hypocrisy of the response. (As As’ad Abu Khalil wrote: There was a car bomb in Damascus a few months ago that killed a Syrian  intelligence chief.  Western media and governments hailed the bombing as a heroic act that killed a villain.  There was a car bomb in Lebanon yesterday  against a Lebanese intelligence chief.  Western media and governments denounced  the bombing as a heinous terrorist act that killed a good guy.)

I can speak of Georgette Sarkissian, the 42-year old mother who was killed by the bomb while she was going home to heat food for her children.  Georgette, who has been forgotten by the politicians. Georgette, the martyr that represents all martyrs, the victim that represents the horror and insanity of these crimes.  Wissam Hassan is not the martyr of all Lebanon; Georgette is.

I can speak of the harm that is yet to come, the further divisions in an already-divided country, the possibly negative ramifications it will have on Syria.

I can also speak of the additional crime committed by the-oh-so-moral Israeli government on the next day: the kidnapping and assault of the Gaza Aid Ship Estelle, and the ongoing, illegal, occupation of Gaza’s sea and imprisonment of the Palestinians in Gaza. (http://www.juancole.com/2012/10/gaza-aid-ship-estelle-commandeered-by-israeli-navy-israel-kidnaps-european-members-of-parliament.html)

In many ways, the crimes are continuing against our people…

I can speak of it all… but for now, I just wish to say: taHya Surya

تحيا سوريا… كل سوريا … من فلسطين للبنان لسورية

May we liberate ourselves from violence, sectarianism, and occupation.

The struggle continues

So, last night was the second of the so-called presidential debates. I say, ‘so called,’ because only the Democrat vs Republican are allowed on these televised debates. Absent and silenced are the many “third-parties” (The Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Justice Party) – Absent and silenced were open questions from the floor in this second so-called debate.  Absent and silenced was an assessment of how much these two fellows (Romney and Obama) actually agree.

Check out these links:

• Secret Debate Contract Reveals Obama and Romney Campaigns Exclude Third Parties, Control Questions
• The Lame Rules for Presidential Debates: A Perfect Microcosm of US Democracy: Secret collusion between the two parties, funded by corporations, run by lobbyists: all the ingredients are there
• Expanding the VP Debate: Third-Party Candidates Challenge Biden & Ryan on War, Economy, Healthcare
• Third Party Candidates Join in Real Time on Democracy Now!’s Live Coverage of [First] Presidential Debate
• Glenn Greenwald: Presidential Debates Highlight “Faux Objectivity” of Mainstream Journalists

Meanwhile, after this second alleged debate, folks will discuss who actually “won” — and typically it is not the issues that are brought up here but the style and wit and eloquence of the speaker.

Bob Witanek spoke – with style and wit and eloquence -  on his facebook status, as to who actually won last night’s debate:

And the winner is . . . well, let’s start with the losers: 1. The victims of US warfare for the next 4 years that one or the other imperial POTUS will carry out, including those blown up by drone bombs, tomahawk, 2300 pounders, bunker bombers, white phosphorus – as well as those strangled by sanctions imposed based upon lies and deception; 2. those whose suffering including starvation, worker super exploitation, death from curable disease and from lack of access to potable water, various other forms of super oppression by the sharpening of exploitation enforced by the full mechanisms of imperialist meddling and intervention; 3. those domestically whose standard of living will continue to free fall due to rising food, energy, medical, insurance and dropping compensation, employment levels – as well as retracting safety net – so the loser is most of the population of the world and nation – all will lose – some more than others – SO THE WINNER IS: The billionaire corporate owners on whose behalf the the current or next president will serve for the next 4 years.

And to add to all of it: the greatest threat facing our planet wasn’t even discussed: climate change.

I visited Tunisia recently.  [Note: I will refer to Tunisia as 'Tunis' because that it is its name in Arabic.] Tunis el-Khadra’ – Green Tunis.  I expected to like it; I didn’t expect to love it, to feel at home amidst its people and amidst the calm, relaxing natural beauty of the country.

For the five days I was there, I awoke (with one exception) quite early to walk on the beach.  I walked from the hotel (Ramada Plaze, in Gammarth) to the beach.  There was no fence separating one part of the beach from the other.

I shared the beauty of the sunrise, every morning, with a few local fishermen (who were looking, quite unsuccessfully, for salmon), and a young man who played with his dogs, and two joyful independent stray dogs.

The hotel was a good distance away from the coast. No house claimed the coast. No fence. No fee.  Rather, the beach, the sea, the coast line were – and are – clearly for all, for the public, for the people.

..

During the time that I was there, a woman was raped by the police.  She was found in a car with her boyfriend when the police apprehended her and raped her while in custody.  The judge then charged with indecent behavior (due to her actions in the car with her boyfriend).  Appalling.  Yes.

Yet – the response from the Tunisian society was beautiful!  All the media stood with her. No one claimed she had asked for it, or brought it on herself. No one attempted to justify the acts of the police.  No one attempted to justify the action of the judge.  There in lies the beauty, the hope, the inspiration.  I am no longer shocked by crimes of the police or judicial system; is it the response of the people that I look to.

On a Tunisian talk show, the female and male hosts had four guests, two men and two female.  All of them were consistent in their objection to violence against women.  The discussion was not a debate, a presentation of different perspectives. Rather, it was a logical, rational, and passionate discussion about what to do now, why did the police behave this way, how the girl – and others – can be protected, what people should do… It was inspirational!

I remembered a Lebanese talk show. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember the particular tv show).  The topic was domestic violence. The host had invited two men and two women – to discuss the issue. The women, quite pathetically, argued that domestic violence was wrong, and the men, with the encouragement of the host, argued that domestic violence was fine, that they beat their wives and they were right to do so.  Domestic violence – for that show – becamse a perspective, a viewpoint!

Tunis remains the Arab country with strong legislation for women – and thus for society as a whole.

…

Even now, with people agitating against Tunis being pushed into the hands of the “Muslim Brotherhood,” even now, with difficult struggles for economic justice, I see in Tunis what I dream of for Lebanon, for all the Arab countries.

Yes, perhaps my eyes and heart are clouded with the beauty of the country, the wonderful warmth and easy-nature of the people, the sweet sound of the Tunisian accent, the rich food. Perhaps I am romanticizing the country. Allow me that romance. Allow it for a moment.

Coming from Lebanon, I realize that the most basic of rights — the right to the commons, the right to be safe from harm, the right to be treated as a full human being — are not that pervasive.  Coming from my childhood in Bahrain, and my youth in North Carolina, the same applies.

The struggle for equality continues in Tunis, yes.  May the Left in Tunis continue to grow in strength. May Tunis continue to inspire us all. May we all continue to inspire each other.

A few weeks ago, at a regional conference in beautiful Tunis (which is another discussion), I shared tea with almonds with a colleague from Kuwait.  Naturally, our conversation meandered to Lebanon, my home.

“Ah,” he said, “I go to Lebanon every summer; I have a home there.”

Immediately, I thought of the Metn, the glorious pine forests and their intoxicating smell, the red-roofed stone homes, the curving roads, the terraced agriculture — and how all of it is changing rapidly.  The pine forests having to battle against, not only the increasing forest fires, but, much more dangerously, the urbanization. They are being cut down, replaced with guady, large villas — some even with swimming pools — to house summer visitors.  Their swimming pools contribute to water scarcity for the farmers who are still, with extreme difficulty, trying to survive. And, in the process, and with thanks to the absentee policies of the Lebanese government, the cost of the land has sky rocketed.

“How lucky for you,” I said. “I cannot afford a home in my mother’s village. I cannot afford to buy land in the mountains. I – and many many others like me – can barely afford to rent an apartment in our own country.”

“Yes… but Lebanon is so beautiful. Particularly Beirut.”

I sighed inwardly.  After 7 months living in Cairo, I have grown wary of people claiming to love Beirut.  What draws them – all too often – to my capitol are the very things that push me away.

“What do you find beautiful about Beirut?,” I asked him.

“Just look at those new buildings!” There was no sarcasm in his tone.

“Those buildings,” I said. “You mean, the over-priced, million-dollar-plus apartment high-rises that block out the view of the sea to everyone else, that encroach along the coast, that contribute to inflation? Or do you mean the hotels that have stolen the public coast?”

“Well… You have Zaitouna Bay. That is wonderful,” he continued.

“aH. Zaitouna Bay. A privately-owned, overly-priced, exclusive area for restaurants and shops in which we are not allowed to rest on the grass. That was built on reclaimed land – and thus is legally public property. That Zaitouna Bay?

“Look,” I continued. “What is important is that a country be for its citizens, first and foremost. The coastline should be for all, not to be limited to those who can afford to pay the $20 entrance fee to swim in their own sea.  We should be able to own land in our own country.  A country should serve its people, and not become a tourist-spot for others.”

…

Meanwhile, there is a campaign in Lebanon to reclaim the commons, to enforce the law that states – clearly – that the beaches are public property.  That campaign — Masha3 — is illustrated here: Finding Common Ground

“In flagrant disregard of the Lebanese law that states that the sea is public property, the publicly owned land reclaimed from the sea adjacent to Beirut’s downtown area is being gradually transferred to the rampant property developer Solidere, a private company renowned for its elitist and exclusive developments.

In a bid to retain the remaining reclaimed land, the Masha3 (Arabic for commons) movement aims to unite and organize efforts to reclaim it for public use.”

For more on the commons-campaign, refer to their facebook page

And about that Zaitouna Bay, the brilliant Mohammed Zbeeb has this article in today’s English Al-Akhbar

Zaytouna Bay, the luxury seafront development built on reclaimed land along Beirut’s downtown coastline, is the embodiment of everything worth resisting in Lebanon: corruption, the theft of public property, the destruction of the city’s history and seafront, and the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.

The entity responsible for the Zaytouna Bay project is the Beirut Waterfront Development company, which built on the old Normandy landfill by artificially extending the coastline in an environmentally damaging process known as “reclamation.” Beirut Waterfront Development is jointly owned by Solidere, the private company of two former Prime Ministers – Rafik and Saad Hariri – and Stow Capital partners.

Read the article in full here: “Public Property…for the rich only”

The struggle continues… to create a country for the people

on the 45th anniversary of the murder of Che Guevara, a man who linked issues, believed in struggle for justice and lived a life filled with hope and grounded in solidarity, on the anniversary of his death, let’s think of the many other ‘Che Guevara’s who are around us today, who have touched and inspired us today.  Let’s talk about them.

Yalla, tell me of the Che Guevaras in your life.

 

excerpt from Revolution of the Thirsty

… as images of the uprising filled my television screen, I was surprised that commentators seemed unaware of the water crisis, and of the global geopolitical pressures that had made the crisis all but certain. The American media focused mainly on internal corruption and oppression. They did not report on the role of the international superpowers in influencing the Mubarak regime to privatize the country’s public land and water; they did not report, for instance, that since the 1990s the World Bank has argued that privatization enhances “efficiency” and has mandated the policy as a condition for making loans; and that in 2004 this mandate led the Egyptian government to privatize its water utilities, transforming them into corporations which were required to operate at a profit, and which thus began to practice “full cost recovery,” passing along the cost of new infrastructure through rate increases. [7]

Within months of privatization, the price of water doubled in some areas of the capital, and citizens started to protest. At one demonstration in northern Cairo, in 2005, “angry residents chased bill collectors down the streets.” [8] Those who could not afford the new rates had little choice but to go to the city’s outskirts to collect water from the dirty Nile River canals. [9] In 2007, protestors in the Nile Delta blocked the main coastal road after the regional water company diverted water from farming and fishing towns to affluent resort communities. “The authorities sent riot police to put down these ‘disturbances,’” wrote Philip Marfleet, a professor at the University of East London, even as “water flowed uninterrupted to the gated communities, and to country clubs and upmarket resorts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.” [10] In the next few years such demonstrations only grew in intensity. As activist Abdel Mawla Ismail has noted, “Thirst protests or intifadas, as some people have called them, started to represent a new path for a social movement.” From this path the revolution that consumed the nation in 2011 seems inevitable. People can live in poverty for a long time; they cannot live without water.

…

 

Egypt’s boom in luxury suburbs began in the 1990s with the first wave of privatization of government agencies and public land. Vast swaths of desert were sold at bargain prices to friends and relatives of President Mubarak, who also received guarantees of infrastructure like roads, electricity and water lines. [11] These insider deals led to outrageous claims of water rights, like the assurance of unlimited fossil groundwater to a Saudi prince who wanted to grow food in the Sahara. International companies vied for contracts to build water treatment facilities. To be sure, life in the Saharan suburbia was not always as idyllic as advertised; developers of gated communities typically promised reverse osmosis filtration, but many found it cheaper to hook up to municipal water lines — and notoriously unreliable state-run water treatment plants — than to build dedicated facilities. [12] Still, residents paying up to $350 monthly in maintenance and utility fees expected clean water to flow freely when they turned on the tap, and more often than not it did. A recent study of two Cairo suburbs found that 69 percent of residents in Sixth of October City and 42 percent in New Cairo had tap water available at all times. [13]

All the while, as water was flowing and taxpayer money shifting to the exurban oases, millions of residents of old Cairo struggled with little access to sanitary facilities. The ostentatious water wealth that made possible the “greener side of life” was becoming a symbol of government corruption. The Revolution of the Thirsty was gathering strength.”

 

Read the article in full! highly recommended