a billboard erected by the state in Tahrir square (downtown cairo) after the april 6th strike, saying "a youth that loves egypt...the serious youth is one that builds, not destroys". yeah, thanks for that patronizing advice.
Meanwhile...
from a shop window nearby, a sign saying: salesperson (female) wanted, with previous experience and good looks(!) Can anyone say something obtusely profound about the deep epistemological connection between these two signs that are oh so close to each other?
The hummos not yet appropriated by the white man.
Good Friday in Shefa Amr.
Plaque in Haifa's German Colony: "In the middle of a sparsely populated and largely barren land..."
Jabal Al-Sheikh on a clear day from Haifa. This peak is visible from Lebanon, Syria, and the Galilee. It is impossible for anyone actually from these countries, to see it from all three.
"Martyrs of Racism" poster showing the faces of Palestinian citizens of Israel killed in October 2000 and the Shefa Amr Massacre, among other events.
Road sign for Jenin. The sign was good a few years ago but is now obsolete. All roads lead to the Wall.
Why does every Western representation, photo-essay, primetime special feature on Muslims in America exclusively focus on the muhajabat when portraying the American Muslim woman experience?
Time magazine's online photo-essay "Muslim in America" features 16 pics of "ordinary" Muslim activity in New York. Ironically, I have a good amount of friends featured in this pictorial account of Muslim life in NYC.
The only scene with a hijab-less Muslim woman is one in which girls who look to be between the ages of 5-8 are playing in elegant dresses at a Muslim wedding reception.*
And this is only a small ounce of the super-sized meal America has been fed of muhajabats doing "ordinary Western things." From Jordanian boxers in profiled in a salon.com article titled "Muslim women head to head, hijab to hijab," to a little covered Pali girl getting surfing lessons from world-renowned surfer (and Arab!) Kelly Slater, and lastly to a muhajabat fashioning a rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" on the oud, there seems to be an implicit campaign to prove that "Muslim women" too "can be all they can be."
Within this context of a monolithic representation of female Muslim American identity, where does that leave me and others like me who don't choose to veil? Where are our voices and images? And why you ask, is it important to include us in the Muslim American narrative?
Well, for one, I am tired of ignorant-ass, non-Muslim people CONSTANTLY coming up to me judging my Islamic authenticity based on the fact that I don't wear a hijab. The overall perception in my experience with those unfamiliar with the religion and culture is that a Muslim woman's obligations are to:1. Veiling: to cover one's head and body.
For them, Americans unfamiliar with Islamic religious and cultural practices and expressions of faith, these outward performances become primary indicators of a woman's level of devotion to her Islamic faith. Although I shouldn't and don't necessary care how dominant culture perceives me, what I am concerned about is how we as a Muslim community encourage and accommodate this monocular exoticism of our women. Islamically, it is acceptable to cover, and it's permissible not to. But, have our Muslim American marketing strategies failed because we follow suit with how the West wants to represent what appear to be "exotic" religious practices, instead of pushing for a more diverse representation. I am awaiting the day when a Muslim female public intellectual/talking head/ pundit or sitcom/drama character who does not veil makes it onto our flat and silver screens.
2. Abstain from eating pork and drinking liquor
3. Subordination to men: obedience towards one's husband/men in a woman's life.
Understandably, post-9/11, Muslim groups and organizations worked overtime on publicity campaigns to alter America's perception of muhajabat. Very visibly, these women, empowered because they "can do anything a Muslim man or Independent, modern American woman can do," became the poster-child of the American Muslima movement, and I dare say, the face of Islam in America. I feel like in pre-emptetively tempering hostility towards muhajabat, us un-veiled sisters' suffering has gone unaccounted for. Besides the fact that our devotion to our faith is constantly questioned by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike; our experiences are regarded as invalid in the discourse and visual representation of what it means to be a Muslim in America. All I'm asking is to include our voices and experiences in the construction of this narrative.
*For a more detailed, on point breakdown of the shortcomings of this latest attempt by American to "understand" Muslims, check out
this brilliant post by Melinda at Muslimah Media Watch.
Not to be outdone in the Kuffiyah-spotting contest, yes it could determine the next President, Republican candidate John McCain is now trotting his daughter around in a purple kuffiyah (see the above picture, which "she" -- not "they" -- posted on "her" -- not the "campaign's" blog).
Is it a coincidence that this we found this picture only minutes after exposing an Obama supporter's Islamofashionism (see below)?
This seems to be a slick move on the McCain campaign's part to win the Palestinian/angry left's votes. Is he seeking the highly touted KABOBendorsement, which is worth at least 1/20th a superdelegate in terms of electoral influence?
By using his daughter, he also keeps a safe distance from potential controversy from all the right-wing hams he's been carefully courting. Very slick, my friend, very slick. Can we be the first to give him the moniker "Slick Johnny"? (how original, I know)
[tarboush tip: Jonah and Michal]
"I promise I will be a good boy and break the legs of any peace-hating (read: anti-Zionist) Palestinian that tries to leave Gaza....now please give me more money for my retirement fund - oh whoops, I forgot that I will never retire."
While Gaza gets more messed up than mulukhiyya, these two are going to shake hands and lick each other, while toasting to the Israelis finishing off the resistance as soon as possible.
People are going to gather on Tuesday at noon in front of the Lawyers' Syndicate in Downtown Cairo to express their varied and multifaceted emotions around this.
This picture for me articulates the utter despair of Gaza. The little girl is in the hospital in the first place because of how clearly malnourished she is. She is malnourished because Gaza's borders are continuously closed. The ventilator is reportedly running on the emergency generator, for which there is severely limited fuel due to border closures. Remember that this is the backdrop for all of the killing taking place right now.
At the human chain from last week, this boy is holding an empty bottle upon which is written "We want milk."
Tarboush Tip: al-falasteenyia
Gaza - غزة هاشم : General view #4 from the sea looking east
....why can't the Zionists just let it be?
Tarboush Tip: taken from PalestineRemembered.com
The Egyptian (relatively) independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (The Egyptian Today) has a variety piece on an Alexandrian by the name of Mohammed Bashar, 58 who happens to be a "screaming lookalike" (shabah saarikh) of Saddam Husain. Many a time has he walked down the street and people stare at him, then ask God to have mercy on his soul. In addition people have started to call him Abu Oday and Qusay (Saddam's two sons).
This fame, however, has resulted to him being chased by the "mafia of Saddam autobiographies and its brokers" who will just not leave him alone. A director had offered him the sum of money of his choice to act in a film about his lookalike, however after his initial acceptance he pulled out when he found that the film wanted to distort the sex life of the dear departed president.
Apparently this screaming resemblance did not kick in until he hit his fifties (and the American occupation of Iraq) and resulted in him being chased by Gulfies to be photographed together with Saddam.
And his wife's response to all of his: "Better that he resembles Saddam and not Bush, or he would be beaten up in the street!"
Speaking of which, does anyone have a link to the story of the Iraqi who resembled Bush? He seemed to be having an OK time of it.
A normally busy street in Ramallah during President Bush's visit.Israeli politicians, including veterans of the various failed peace processes of the 1990s, ... saw nothing new in Mr. Bush's remarks, since nearly the entire Israeli public is already convinced of the need to give up some of the occupied territories. The question, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, is only "what form the separation from the Palestinians will take."
Some linked the speech to Mr. Bush's coming tour of Arab countries. The President will visit five Arab countries in six days, hoping to rally support for the peace process and firm up an alliance against the threat Mr. Bush says is posed by Iran.
"What's come out of this trip is just warm rhetoric. Anyone who expected more than that is going to be disappointed," said Yossi Alpher, who advised former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. "What is [Mr. Bush] prepared to do about it? Nothing, other than rhetoric, and he leaves tomorrow."
Bush has been a downright failure in foreign affairs. Even if he wanted to pull off this legacy-saving measure -- one that is sure to damn the Palestinians since separation won't mean sovereignty -- I doubt he could. He should have made a real effort when his political capital could afford it. This will clearly be too-little-too-late.
A billboard for Israel spotted in Miami. Israel: the country with the largest PR budget in the world.
[tarboush tip: Matt]
Hebron is the only Palestinian city in the West Bank with an Israeli settlement encroaching from within. Israeli-installed barbed wire, fencing, gates, and concrete serve to segregate Palestinians and Israelis, further encouraging and legitimizing illegal settlements. [Click on photographs to enlarge]
Hebron's Old City souq. Tarps serve as make-shift protection for Palestinian shoppers, store-owners and their property from bricks and trash Israeli settlers drop down from above. 
A fenced-roof protects pedestrians from the garbage and bricks thrown down from Israelis above. This section of the souq was ordered closed by Israel, and prohibits Palestinian pedestrian traffic except to local residents as a project to "Judaize" the area. 
One of various Israeli lookout towers peppering Hebron's Old City. A soldier patrolling from the roof pauses near a staked Israeli flag. 
Settler graffiti. 
Throughout the day, soldiers wander the city seeking to legitimize their armed existence through harassment of Palestinian residents. Here, a driver is stopped by Israeli soldiers who request identification; twenty yards later they'll find a home to raid. 
Palestinian children in late-afternoon play.
Palestinian children in late-afternoon play, zig-zagging a soccer ball through Hebron's old souq.
A checkpoint greets visitors to the Tomb of the Patriarchs entering from the souq (casbah).
In the males-only side of the Jewish section of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, an Israeli slings his M16 aside over his shoulder to pray.
At the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a soldier requests his photograph be taken. He warns not to enter the "dangerous" Islamic section of the tomb because Muslims "steal".
A sign at the Jewish entrance at the Tomb of the Patriarchs near another checkpoint. The IDF would like you to know that the Tzomet Institute and Chief Rabbinate of Kiryat Arba of Hebron said it was okay.
This little girl would like you to know she wants peace. Or victory. Peace, victory - not mutually exclusive concepts.
[Tarboush tip: my Canon 10D]
