Me Being Funny on the Weekend

If you have been wondering where I was all this time and why I didn’t write a word since Monday…thank you for thinking about me.

Was I reflecting to come up with great ideas? NO…NO

Was I depressed from the DEPRESSING situation in our BELOVED Middle East? NO…NO

Was I traveling? NO…NO

Was I sick? NO…NO

Am being funny? I hope so…HAHA

Well, I was spending my time at the gym…

Yes, yes, yes… I see the disappointment on your faces. You thought that I was doing something more interesting like meeting Mr Bush and telling him straight in his face what I think of his failed ME policies, strategies…whatever??

Well, listen to this too…or read this too…

I was learning how to prepare custard... I have been married for 4 years now and I am turning 31 soooooooon, very sooon (on the 13 of October) and still I don’t know how to do the custard…That is not acceptable…well in my part of the world that is a good reason for a man to divorce his wife!!!!

And still Men are governing the world!!! No wonder the world is in BAD SHAPE…

Well if you know of any easy recipes, please HELP ME….

My precious fans from all over the world (again this megalomania thing...it will kill me)Keep Smiling….Have a nice WEEKEND…and of course since this moment I am ready to receive all your best wishes for my B-day… I am not forcing you…If you desire to do so!!!

Bill Clinton, Me and Peace

I like Bill Clinton…well I shouldn’t because he cheated on his wife…but that is not my business…my business is peace…

Yes I like Bill Clinton because he reminds me of myself (my megalomania feeling strikes again!!).
He understands that the glorious way to enter in History is through creating peace in the Middle East…and that is what I believe in too…The greatest thing that I could do to be remembered after a thousand year is by contributing in creating a sustainable and BOILING peace in the Middle East…

So, the next logical question you might be asking yourself is: “Oh so she is doing whatever she is doing for glory not for the people!!”

Tricky question…well as the owner of the blog I choose not to answer to this question… I can see the smile on someone’s face (private joke)…

However, I am writing these words today because I am really worried…

For the past few days I have been reading the following in the newspapers:

1-Clinton announcing that within 60 days, there is going to be good news in the ME regarding peace

2-Peretz calling for negotiations with Syria

3-Abbas announcing that a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine is impossible without Syria

4-Syria begging for a come back to the table of negotiations with Israel

Where does this leave Lebanon???

HA!! Here comes the bad news: Lebanon will be ON the table of negotiations, instead of being around the table.

It means that once again Lebanon will be a playing card in the hands of all the main players…

That is why we Lebanese can not just sit back and declare that we will be the last country to sign a peace treaty with Israel…
We should have a plan, a strategy and a bargaining chip strong enough to reserve a place AROUND the table of negotiations…

Hey…Bahrain has declared its wish to normalize its relations with Israel…what does this make you think????

Wake up people…of Lebanon...we should stop being afraid….of the word peace with Israel or of the word normalization…

Hezbollah has been declaring that we won this bloody 33 day war…So it means that we can enter NOW into peace talks with Israel as long as we are strong and we defeated the almighty Israeli army….
Now it is the time…We are strong…(Isn’t that the logic of those refusing to start negotiations with Israel?? They don’t want to be the weakest party???)

NOW we are strong…. NOW is the time…

Wind of Change

This one goes to the Arab people, to those that believe in peaceful struggle for a just peace, to those that still distrust their Israeli neighbours

Ramadan Karim…

This one goes to the People of Israel, to those that believe in a just peace, to those that still fear their neighbours…

Shana Tova, Shnat Shalom…

This is how our future should look like…

“I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

The world closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change

Walking down the street
Distant memories
Are buried in the past forever

I fallow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change
The wind of change blows straight
Into the face of time
Like a stormwind that will ring
The freedom bell for peace of mind
Let your balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams
With you and me

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change”

(Of course this is a song by the Scorpions, 1990-Wind of Change)

God and delegation of power

What is happening to the world? What is happening to people?

God, wherever you are I think it is time for you to show up and talk to these people, to the world…to your people…

I think people are really abusing you and they are really taking advantage of your absence…Delegation has turned out to be a bad strategy…

What, you are shocked? Hey aren’t you watching the news? What else do you have up?...
Well, I do not believe that you are writing these awful deadly scripts of the human beings of the 21 century…

Hey God, it is really getting bad…unlike you I am spending a lot of time watching television…and guess what I have seen today…

On BBC, I watched a report about Christian Kids Jihadists in the US…believe me, yes a school where kids learn to die for the sake of Christ, to counter-balance the Islamic Jihadists Kids…

I was shocked hey but nothing is compared to what I saw on ARTE…

Are you sure you want to know?
Well, I watched a documentary on Jesus Revolutionary Army in Oslo…I will just stop here…

God I am telling you believe me it is about time for you to show up…

Your chosen people, your holy trinity people, your jihadist people… They are all gone crazy…they are all killing in your name…

God, it is not that I know you that much, we were never that close, we were never best friends but from what I have heard about you…You are good…You are beautiful, You are light…

Believe me God your people(s) are being exactly the opposite…bad, ugly and dark

Hey, it is about time to end your long vacation…and get down to business

Bad news is good news

October 1994, Byblos, Lebanon
The first course on journalism at the university
Me, a shy smile on my face…yes imagine wanting to become the best war correspondent, a Christiane Amanpor alike and SHY??? Well that is nothing compared to the other contradictions in my personality…OK OK OK I have never pretended to be perfect and actually I do not wish to be perfect…that is boring…

Now back to the main point of this post…
I entered to class…history of communication or journalism..I don’t remember…
The lecturer looked at us and said: “Today and for the coming 3 or 4 years, you will learn how bad news is good news to journalists.”…

I always try to remember when that concept started, who enforced that BAD NEWS IS GOOD NEWS for journalists…but in vain, I must have missed class that day…

This is what we always hear on the news…killings, bombings, arrests, terrorist attacks, wars, genocide, Divine defamation, clashes…

What if we transform the news…to good news only???

I know what you are thinking…it will be boring…

I know what you are going to say…if we don’t cover the bad news then those committing atrocities will get away with their crimes…

Ha..I have an answer to that…hearing about the bad news doesn’t mean that we are doing something to stop the acts…No reaction, no response to put an end to it…

Well, the only reaction or response to bad news is that we are zapping…searching for a comedy movie….

Oh I am so proud of myself…I just realized that I haven’t used the word P…(for those who didn’t get it I mean peace)…Well I have been accused of being obsessed with peace…

Samurai Peace Activists

The last battle scene of “The Last Samurai” has inspired me today…How is that? How come a peace activist is inspired by a war scene?
Well, of course I will tell you…

The last battle of the Samurai was an unequal fight…The army had machine guns and the Samurai had swords…Then this analogy came to my mind…

Peace activists are like the Samurai…fighting against powerful, almighty and heavily militarized institutions.

Heavy are the losses and the feeling of ineffectiveness is always chasing the Samurai peace activists.

But they continue fighting with grace and passion…

Peace activists are breakers of chains and barriers…

Peace activists see the beauty of human beings…

Peace activists appreciate diversity…

Peace activists put a humane face to the supposed or so-called “ENEMY”…

Peace activists are passionate…they adore life…

Peace activists are the heroes of life…

In the last scene of “The Last Samurai”, the emperor asks Tom Cruise about his master and teacher who died on the battlefield…
Emperor: “Tell me how he died”
Tom Cruise: “I will tell you how he lived”

Peace activism has become a high risk job…
Well, if I die on the battlefield…It doesn’t matter how I die…

However, I want people to remember how I lived…searching for peace…passionately…

Lucky me

Again and again…I come back to the issue of peace…It seems I cannot get rid of this obsession…

Peace needs Creativity…
Creativity needs Inspiration…
Therefore Peace needs Inspiration…

Where does inspiration come from?
Well many writers and poets rely on their Muse (the one that inspires)…

Lucky is the one who finds her/his muse…

Lucky me…

Great Minds

They always say what is your biggest fear? …you always hear failure…

My biggest fear is not failure; it is the failure of entering History…the fear of passing through this life without leaving a trace…

You might call it megalomania…maybe you are right…

Then…with time…my certitude started fading…well yes it kills me to write this and it kills me to see this black on white but my chances to become part of History is really slim…really slim…

So, then again…with time…again…I started asking myself…Ok…the whole universe will not remember you after a hundred year…but your family will, your friends’ children and grand children might know about you…about your greatness…Isn’t that enough?...

To tell you the truth…NO

Today, I am still scared that I will be forgotten…

9/11, 2006: what Arab Muslims should do

September 11, 2001: I was in the UK handing in my MA thesis and going shopping as a reward for my year long studies of the ME. A Lebanese childhood friend of mine called me astonished, shocked; he was trying to explain to me what happened in the US, he was trying to understand what happened.

But I remember him saying this is not good not good at all for us the Arabs…he was right!!!

September 11, 2006: I am in Beirut still trying to understand the dynamics of the ME!!!
Blair is in Beirut and not everybody is happy about that…
I am watching on TV demonstrations on the streets of Beirut protesting against Blair’s visit.

For 5 years, I have been hearing Arabs and Muslims nagging and protesting against the US and its allies (especially the UK) accusing them of racism and calling them the “real terrorists”…
Fine, I am not saying that the US is being rational; I am not saying that the Bush doctrine and the Bush policy of extracting Global Terrorism are smart.

But, I wished for 5 years to see an Arab demonstration, a Muslim demonstration against Ben Laden and against Zarqawi (before his death)…I have never seen a demonstration against these terrorists…against these people who are pretending that they are fighting on behalf of the Muslims. I have heard thousands of people saying that Ben Laden’s Islam is not the real Islam…So, where are you people why aren’t you demonstrating against him????

10,000 Muslim in Germany demonstrated yesterday against the attacks of 9/11 …Maybe others should follow…especially Arab Muslims…They have to denounce Ben Laden…They have to shout loud: Ben Laden we Arab Muslims refuse to be used by you. Stop pretending that you are fighting in our name and for our sake…

Peace is a feeling

"The road to security passes through peace. There is no road to peace that passes through security". I read this statement in an article by Galtung who is the father of peace studies.

Two words interested me Security and Peace.

I always believed that security is a feeling. In Iraq 2005, I never felt insecure…Imagine

Israel is the most powerful military force in the Middle East and its people is feeling insecure…Imagine

I am coming to a realization that peace is a feeling as well.
And that is the strongest feeling…Imagine

Yes, imagine that an Israeli is able to empathize with a Lebanese during the fiercest moments of the war…what do you call that?

Imagine a Lebanese making an Israeli feel peaceful…what do you call that?

There is no road to peace that passes through coward people. The road to peace passes though creative people.

Creativity and the will for peace can shake and move mountains

Keep walking

November 2005, Shaqlawa, Kurdistan
At the end of 3 days training on Conflict Transformation, I asked the Iraqi trainees to imagine peace. How do they see themselves living in peace?

There was discomfort in the room!!!

One woman looked at me laughing she said: “I can not do this, I can not imagine peace. I don’t know what it means, I have never lived in peace in my life in Iraq.”

I was in tears. It was so sad and so painful to hear that.

September 2006, Internet, No Man’s Land
I received an email full of nostalgia.
I received a mail full of love and passion, full of freedom and liberty.
I received a mail full of desire for breaking stupid chains, meaningless restrictions.

These intense feelings are the fuel for my ongoing journey towards peace.

Open Forum

“Why don’t you find something else to do in your life?”
“Why you do this to yourself, doesn’t it make you frustrated?”

This is what my friend told me yesterday over coffee…She was talking about my work as a trainer on peacebuilding.

What peacebuilding is that, look around you…the last thing you want to be in this part of the world is a peace activist, she added.

Well, many times out of frustration I have said these things to myself, why I am doing this job? What for? Is my work effective? Is it reducing violence and hatred?

But when you are a peace activist, when you are in this
business of peacemaking the last thing you want to think of is surrendering to despair.

I want to know what is making other peace activists in this region not lose hope and keep up with the work.

I want other peace activists to send me their views, their stories, hints and tips. I want to show my suspicious friend the secret blend of peace activists for eternal hope for peace.

Handshake

Two days ago, Mr. Olmert declared that he wanted to meet Mr. Seniora face to face, shake his hand and talk about peace.

Olmert’s handshake is a useless folklore…Remember the White House handshake between Arafat, Rabin and Peres? Did it lead to peace? Where did it lead?

A handshake or a peace treaty at this point in time is fruitless…It will be another fake peace… Maybe the Israeli government should learn from the consequences and results of the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

Peace is not political
Peace is not disengagement
Peace is not isolation
Peace is not neutrality

Peace is relationships
Peace is connection
Peace is engagement
Peace is people

Only people’s peace is a real peace.

No flight

The war on Lebanon ended…but the blockade is still on…Nothing and no one goes out of Lebanon without the permission of Israel, and nothing and no one enters to Lebanon without the permission of Israel…

The head of the Lebanese parliament Mr Nabih Berri called for an open sit-in at the house of the parliament in downtown Beirut…All the MPs were present…

But where is the Lebanese population? Shouldn’t we join our MPs in the sit-in? Aren’t we being affected by the blockade? The Lebanese people used to go into deep coma (no-reaction to big events) after dramatic events…but since the 14 of February 2005 (after the assassination of PM Hariri) the Lebanese showed that they are a lively people, they can be a force for change and a pressure force…

Where is that powerful, dynamic population? What am I still doing at home writing this entry? Why aren’t we in downtown, at the airport, at the seaport protesting, demonstrating for the end of the blockade?