Say hello to today’s vomit-inducing video. Watching this depraved garbage boiled my blood, because I know firsthand the serious damage it can do.

I still remember singing similar crap during my primary school days in Qatar. Only years later did I come to realize the negative effects it had on my thinking.

The video has over a million views on YouTube, and the show is apparently becoming very popular in the Arab world.

For all of you non-Arabic speakers, the girl is singing:

When we seek martyrdom, we go to heaven.

You tell us we’re small, but from this way of life we have become big.

Without Palestine, what does childhood mean?

I’m glad many Arab writers have written articles condemning the sickening dangerous nature of this show.

The people responsible for producing it and broadcasting it should be exposed and condemned. Shame on them. Shame on all of them.

It’s disgusting.

And it reinforces the notion that the Palestinian issue (while an important and worthy cause) is somehow the main source of the many problems of the Muslim world, when it’s clearly not.

I mean seriously, how the hell are we supposed to build healthy functioning societies, when we teach our children to value death more than life? Heck, why study? Why become entrepreneurs and create employment? Why engage in something constructive?

Naaa, too hard. It’s too much work. Might as well just blow up ourselves, skip judgment day, and go straight to heaven. Lots of candy. So much of it there in paradise, it’s actually better than Disney Land.

Screw life. Yeah, screw it.

Death baby, oh yeah.

Here I come, wooohoooo!

Rabbi Manis Friedman is certainly one hell of a lovely nut. To all you American Islamophobic super right-wing nuts reading this right now, let this be a reminder that the cherry picking of verses from sacred texts happens on all sides.

Here’s a wonderful example from the American Jewish magazine, Moment, highlighted nicely by Avveroes Press.

Moment is an American Jewish magazine “dedicated to serious, highly-literate, intellectual journalism.” Unfortunately, its current issue carries a contribution that seriously tarnishes the magazine’s claim to an intellectual discourse.

The magazine posed a question to several Rabbis ranging from Humanist to Conservative and Reform to  Reconstructionist.

The question was “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbours?” and the answers ranged from deep empathy towards Palestinians to philosophical and theological.

Rabbi Fred Schindler Dodd  wrote:

“…what about “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18)? Arabs and Jews are by necessity neighbors and will be in any ethical scenario. By tradition (Torah and Quran alike) we’re more than neighbors, we’re kin?and though cousins fight, they’re still family.”

Nice, high five Rabbi Fred. I can respect the values and morals of your interpretation. Okay, now we come to the not so nice part.

Rabbi Manis Friedman of the Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies answered:

I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.

The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).

… Zero tolerance for stone throwing, for rockets, for kidnapping will mean that the state has achieved sovereignty. Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.

Yikes!

I’d love to see Rabbi Manis thrown together with some fanatic Talibani nut for a special episode of… The Holy Room. They’d make really good friends.

Asshole.

The suspects in the murder of John Granville, who worked for USAID, have been found guilty and sentenced to death.

KHARTOUM (AFP) – A Khartoum court condemned four Islamists to death on Wednesday for the 2008 killing of a US diplomat and his Sudanese driver, as the US embassy warned of possible retaliation over the verdict.

Judge Said Ahmed al-Badri sentenced the four to be hanged for the murders.

A fifth man, who had provided the other defendants with the weapon but did not take part in the murder, was sentenced to two years in prison.

… Federal Bureau of Investigation officers from the United States had helped to investigate the killings which sent shockwaves through the sizeable Western community in Khartoum, a city usually considered one of the safest in Africa.

Again, I must stress that when this murder occured, the vast majority of Sudanese were vocal in their condemnation. Nobody wants crimes like this to be come a trend, except for the jihadists types of course who are a tiny minority.

Here’s to justice being served in elsewhere.

*Cough* Darfur *cough, cough* … Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

The drama continues unabated in Iran, and Twitter has now become an active battleground apparently getting infiltrated even by the Iranian security apparatus.

To get a sense of what’s happening, watch this video.

To understand how Twitter and new media are such a central part of the psychological warfare getting waged by both sides, read this and watch this video.

More on leveraging Twitter to help Iranian activists here.

Yay to cyberwar.

Yours truly will update this post shortly with his reaction to the speech. Let’s just say I was pleased it didn’t excessively venture into La La Land territory, which is nice. Plus, many parts of it were surprisingly candid and straight forward.

Anyways, me will be back with more.

Meanwhile, you can dive in and drop your reaction. Good thing Mr. President mentioned Darfur once.

UPDATE: Been crazy busy, but had time to drop a quick comment here. If you’re curious about where Obama got some of his ideas for the speech especially in regards to which Quranic veses to use, then find out here. Meanwhile, me is keeping track of the situation in Iran.

Virtually all my Iranian friends (at least those who are not apathetic and who voted, the majority), are pretty pissed off at what happened, and rightly so. If one word can describe their fight both online and offline at protests, then it’s this.

Inspiring.

According to them, this time it’s different, and unlike any unrest before since the revolution took place. So, let’s see what happens, and how Obama will respond.

Here’s to hoping that filthy bitch called Ahmadinejad gets kicked out. While the lovely Mullahs and supreme leader will remain, it will still be a positive outcome.

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest-post by my friend, Omar, who is someone I consider to be a very talented writer. While there are some disagreements in regards to certain details, I pretty much strongly agree with his core argument. Although, I’d be careful not to descend into nihilism.

Almost every day, I hear people uttering a phrase that I can’t help but grit my teeth to: “Everything Happens for a Reason.”

We use it to console ourselves when something goes wrong. Almost like an automatic cooling mechanism that kicks in on an overheating nuclear reactor.

We use it to philosophize our life’s circumstances. And in many cases, it’s the only thing left for us to hold on to (or so we think).

But - regardless of whether you believe in the concept of religion - could this yearning for a higher purpose to everything we do be nothing more than a comfortable illusion?

First of all, let’s identify which definition of ‘reason’ we’re referring to.

If you define reason through a simple cause-and-effect model (such as if you work hard, you’ll reap the results), then everyone can pretty much agree that everything does without a doubt happen for a reason.

The other model, however, is the one I have problems with:

The belief that everything that happens is just a small puzzle piece of a higher power’s master plan.

i.e. if you get in an accident and lose your leg, it’s actually because god planned this for you, and he wants you to learn something from it.

I ask you this question in a tone as inoffensive as I can muster: Don’t you think the latter model is just a tad presumptuous and self indulgent for us as mere mortals to hold on to?

If there is a god out there, I find it hard to believe that he’d micro manage the destiny of every single person, animal and inanimate object on the planet.

It’s easier to believe that he just made us, and put us on autopilot, leaving us to figure things out for ourselves.

In fact, it makes a lot more sense.

If you lose your leg in an accident, it could be because you were careless. Or because another driver was careless. Or because your car malfunctioned.

It could be all of these things, or it could be none of these things. Billions of tiny, seemingly insignificant variables work in unison to determine our fate.

Even something as small as leaving your house 5 minutes late because you forgot your keys could snowball into a monumental occasion, like meeting the love or your life, or yes, losing your leg in an accident.

The question is, why do so many of us invariably end up attributing these variables to the machinations of a higher power?

By our very nature, we struggle to find meaning and purpose in everything, often where there is none.

This may be an extreme example, but some of us worship pieces of toast that bear a passing resemblance to Christ.

But out of the billions of pieces of bread that have been made since the beginning of time, doesn’t it make sense that one of them will eventually end up looking like a bearded man?

Some of us witness extraordinary occurrences like people recovering from cancer, and we call it a miracle or an act of god.

But once again, out of the millions of people suffering from cancer, isn’t it just nothing more than a statistical inevitability that some will survive the disease?

I’m not suggesting you give up your religious beliefs, if any. I’m merely suggesting that we stop looking for reason where there is none, and embrace the freedom that lies within the randomness of reality.

Because ultimately, life is what you make of it.

Growing up, I’ve never really watched the Star Trek series. I remember seeing it sometimes on the Qatari English TV channel during my childhood days in Qatar.

The Star Trek Movie Trailer

The show seemed silly to me. Weird looking people and space monkeys, wearing weird looking costumes, firing around weird looking lazers. The spaceships were cool though, that’s for sure.

At the time, I didn’t understand or speak English. And given the techie english language of the show, its Arabic subtitles were awkward and hilarious to read

So basically, when the movie came out recently, I wasn’t too excited to see it, but my friends insisted.

Hence, I went, and damn was it awesome!

Not the greatst movie I’ve watched. It didn’t enter my favorite top 10 list, but nonetheless it was pretty entertaining.

However, besides all the cool action and special effects, what caught my attention was the dominant theme of attempting to reconcile “Logic Vs Emotion, Reason Vs Faith” throughout the movie.

Logic being the Vulcans, Emotions being the Human race, and the struggle to reconcile both being symbolized by Spock, the deeply conflicted child of two worlds, born of a Vulcan father and a Human mother.

It got me thinking about the ongoing fun debate on Islam and faith in my head. It also reminded me of the super cool Foundation book series by Isaac Asimov.

Where does the balance lie in the reconciliation and use of both logic and emotions in our daily lives? How much of each is too much, and how does the answer depend on context?

Too much logic, and you risk being an emotionless computer-like Vulcan. Too much emotion, and you risk becoming an irrational, angry, or even pacifist, dysfunctional “Human.”

Is and can love ever be logical?

What is consciousness?

Are emotions merely the product of electrochemicals released and interpreted by our brains? Such would be a materialist reductionist, and also scientifically incorrect view.

Th movie certainly re-triggered questions that I placed on the shelf and brought them back to the forefront again. It left me wondering about which Star Trek movie character I’d like to be if I had a choice.

I’m thinking the humanized Spock at the very end of the movie after he gave in to feelings and got “emotionally compromised.”

Now, what about YOU?

…

Live long and prosper,

Drima

You don’t usually come across such loud and candid public debates about Israel within the United States. Or well, at least I myself haven’t. This is certainly a first.

Throughout the debate I found myself agreeing most of the time with Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.

Michael Scheuer, a former unit director at the CIA, came across as a bit of an angry nut. Disloyal American fifth column?

Erm, okay.

As for Alan Dershowitz, and especially the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold… well, they certainly cracked me up with some of their ludicrous statements.

Here’s part 1 of 5.

Here’s the rest:

• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 2 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 3 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 4 of 5
• Getting Tough on Israel - Part 5 of 5

Given the results of the debate, can we predict the gradual downfall of the notorious AIPAC, and the eventual rise of the better J-Street as a replacement?

Looks like it.

However, with American public opinion on Israel seemingly shifting towards the left, we can only expect more friction between the US and Israel as Israeli internal politics tilt towards the right.

Hint: Lieberman.

Iknow not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

– Albert Einstein

Drima just got back from Istanbul and is officially blown away by the city. Gosh, what an amazing vibrant place. I loved every second of every minute I spent there.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in any city that felt so comfortable and homey for me in such a short span of time. It is such a rare occasion of the best of East meeting the best of West, and the two merging together so peacefully, you sometimes can’t even tell them apart.

Prayer in the Blue Mosque was certainly the highlight of the trip for me. It was a deeply mystical experience being inside under the large dome listening to the beautiful and echoing recitation of the Quran by the imam.

Alright, so let me get this straight. Whenever bad shit happens to the Muslim world, it’s supposed to be God’s test, because he loves us. But whenever bad shit happens to the infidels, especially Western and Jewish ones, it’s a Divine punishment.

Hilarious.

Seriously, I couldn’t agree more with the awesome Sudanese writer Nesrine Malik in her latest article at The Guardian’s CiF about Muslim reactions to the swine flu.

Yay to retarded, simplistic, delusional, self-serving politicized faith. Boo to good non-rational faith.

But, here’s where it all gets even more hilarious. The swine flu has reached Israel, home of the sons of swines and apes.

Irony anyone?

On a related note, dear Californians reading this blog, if you don’t want another 9/11, continue the fight against gay marriage in your state.

Jerry Falwell was right!

When I was 14, I spent close to six months in a Wahhabi-influenced Islamic school. During my time there I was exposed to all kinds of life-changing religious experiences.

One of the most memorable ones started when some interesting ideas were fed to me and my classmates by a God-fearing pious Jordanian teacher.

He sat before us for one entire week, and talked to us about the importance of piety and reciting the Quran.

We listened attentively. Even I myself, listened attentively too, and why not? After all, I wanted to be pious. I wanted to be closer to God. I wanted to be a better Muslim, and so I paid attention and kept an open mind.

But the result was nothing but a disgusting fear that shook me for over 30 days.

One of the things the so-called “teacher” emphasized was the importance of reading Surat Al-Mulk every night before going to bed.

According to him, if anyone of us died during sleep without reading it before going to bed, we would have to endure the horrific pains of “The Torture of the Grave.”

Belief in “the torture of the grave” indeed stretches way back in history. It appears in eighth-century epitaphs and in early Islamic traditions, which elevated this belief to the status of dogma.

But pious Muslims today continue to adhere to this belief. In invocations, funeral prayers, sermons, and popular literature, Muslims are frequently reminded to heed this punishment.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them take it seriously. The psychologist Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek, who has studied anxieties about death among Arab youth, has found that preoccupation with the torture of the grave remains acute.

The Egyptians and Kuwaitis he polled worried about this torture more than they feared losing a dear relative or succumbing to a serious, fatal disease.

For over a month, I read the required chapter from the Quran before going to bed. But on some nights, I’d forget, only to jump out of bed later in the middle of the night rather terrified at the possibility of dying in my sleep and going through the Torture of the Grave.

Initially, nobody in my family noticed something different about me, but my mom eventually did.

I still remember her walking into my room one night and seeing me frantically reading the Quran. “Boy, since when do you read the Quran before going to bed? I thought you preferred those science magazines of yours,” and so I told my mom the entire story.

She was furious at what my teacher had done, and thankfully told me the comforting words I desired to hear.

I believed her because she was pious, prayed five times a day and spoke of a loving God rather than a terrifying one who enjoys dipping our asses into BBQ sauce and roasting them in eternal infernos.

Plus, she was much older than I am, so surely she must have known some things about the nature of God, Islam, and faith that I was probably missing.

And it worked.

The next day my fear-induced habit of reading the Quran before going to bed vanished, and I told my teacher that he was wrong because God was loving and merciful, to which he replied “so, are you denying the existence of hell?”

My teacher had a point, but so did my mom. What they said simply represented different sides of the same coin, which is the reality of how most people practice religion - cherry picking.

My mom focused (and continues to focus) on all the nice things in Islam by conveniently interpreting the harsh aspects away, while my lunatic teacher, I believe, did take religion all as a whole and recognized even the harsh aspects but placed an extra focus on them.

As for me, I realize today that one of the the main reasons I accepted the garbage preached by my old genius teacher was because I did not require evidence for such claims. On top of that I was gullible, and bought into his definition of open-mindedness.

His was a horrendous one and required people to accept what he preached as the “truth” without demanding evidence. It is the same kind of destructive so-called “open-mindedness” encouraged by too many religious preachers today, and it stinks.

This is how I believe open-mindedness ought to be defined.

Defining Open-Mindedness

The video is also relevant to an important question that came up during “The Crocodile-Infested River of Blasphemy” debate on verifying Mr. Y’s “inspirational capacity” and whether knowledge derived from it is reliable or not.

It’s something I’ll leave you to think about.

Meanwhile, I had a dream last night about a flying hippopotamus with large butterfly wings. Singer Celine Dion spoke through him to me and told me that I need to go out to buy and distribute massive amounts of cotton candy to the world’s children.

She said I had to hurry and that if I don’t do as she says, aliens in UFO’s will kidnap me, throw me into a dark dungeon on Planet Booga Ooga 69, where I’ll be chained in front of Britney Spears as she sings to me all her top hits on loop for all eternity.

Millions of people already believe this and are already implementing the important cotton candy instructions in their lives. Oh, but here’s the best part.

If you don’t start doing the same soon, go and buy some really good ear plugs. You’re going to need them.

SINcerely,

Drima Abu Hamdan Ibn Zandaqa

April 14th, 2009, was this blog’s 3rd birthday. I just realized that today. So, happy belated birthday to this blog, and to all of you for your continuous support and readership.

Especially you guys who’ve been around here from the start. Because of you, a wonderful community has formed around this blog over the last three years.

Yes, it’s been three freaking years. Can you believe it?

Oh, how time flies, and how minds change. Three years, whoosh, past your eyes, just like that.

I know I’ve said it before, but the feeling hasn’t changed. Indeed, every now and then when I look back at the archives of 2006, I still cringe when I read some of my old posts, and wonder to myself “was that really me, and wtf was I thinking when I wrote that?”

I can’t help but reflect on everything that happened because of starting this blog.

Yes, my literary skills have improved. Yes, I’ve been flown to cool conferences. Yes, I’ve started writing a book. Yes, I’ve made many good friends through this blog. A few of whom I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting, and many whom I have yet to meet.

Not to mention my way of thinking which has also evolved a great deal. So much in fact, that I never ever would have imagined becoming the free thinking much happier heretic I am today, but all of this has come with an unregrettable price.

You see, as the days pass by, and I look around me deeper into the eyes of family and friends, I begin to better fathom the extent of the expanded distance that has come between us within specific domains, but that hopefully won’t weaken our bonds.

I feel like I am entering a tough period in my life, one in which I’m struggling hard to ensure as best as I can that the important decisions I’ll take are truly mine, but without hurting or alienating the ones I love and care about.

Thing is, I can no longer decide the big issues based on the wishes or expectations of those around me, mainly because the belief systems that lead to such decisions are no longer as shared as they used to be.

Plus, it is my life after all.

Things are just too different now, but I fear that there are some things (like cultural restrictions) which I can’t escape, no matter how much I try. And if that’s the case, should I continue fighting? Is there hope? Or am I just too freaking over-analytical, and should instead let things go with the flow?

I don’t know.

But admittedly going with the flow does seem like the best option most of the time… until those inevitable deep contemplative pauses kick in every once in a while.

Ultimately though, I remain optimistic, because previous major questions and struggles have been resolved, like the one I dealt with regularly on a daily basis two years ago.

Here I am, a Sudanese, a Nubian Arab, a Shaige and a Muslim traveling across the United States of America. There I was contemplating and struggling within myself. It’s a struggle I wake up to face everyday. It’s the struggle of the Westernized me VS the Sudanese Muslim deeply engrained within me. It’s the fight and the search for answers. It’s about finding a place where I belong. This place is not a physical one but a mental one. It’s a mental state, which I and only I can achieve for myself.

And today I have thankfully achieved it. The “hows” and intricacies involved therein will require a whole new separate post to explain, but for now, let’s just say that framing the struggle in terms of “Westernized Vs Sudanese Muslim” in my mind was a mistaken approach, but more later on that.

My point is that this is no longer a struggle I wake up to everyday anymore.

The mental state has been achieved. It is something I am grateful for, and oh what a relief.

But where I screwed up my assessment, was in forgetting that a new mental state is not where things stop.

Oh no, far from it.

Because new mental states result in shaping new actions, and actions (unlike thoughts) are visible to all those around who can witness and see them. They more difficult to hide if one wished to hide them. And why even hide them? Why not just be?

Choice of life partner, dating, religious rituals, career, who to support politically…

Only time will tell. That is the new challenge that has risen before me.

At the end of the day, my main wish is to make decisions that are mine, while reaching a state of equilibrium where agreeing to disagree is smoothly possible, and one in which bonds of affection I share with those around me can still be preserved.

I don’t know how things will turn out, or how long it will take, but… I have faith. And on top of that, a wonderful clarity unlike any other I’ve ever had, but since the clock is still ticking, that clarity is destined to get only clearer… hopefully.

The journey continues.

And as I continue to walk the roads ahead, I thank you all for your supportive readership, your emails, and all the food for thought you’ve given me along the years. It’s been a pleasure, regardless of whether we’ve always agreed or not.

Seriously, a big heartfelt thank you to you boys and girls.

You’re awesome readers.

I love you guys!

Oh. My. God.

Okay, so you’ve probably already heard about the amazing Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. You know, the 47 year old, unmarried woman, who’s never been kissed, is unemployed and lives with her cat?

Makes you kinda grateful for those seemingly lame high school crushes now huh?

But yeah, anyways, this kid Shaheen Jafargholi… well, he’s mind-blowing. I mean, damn, where the hell was he hiding all this time? Stellar. And absolutely mind-blowing.

That’s some serious crazy talent for a 12 year old, heck, for any aspiring singer.

Watch Him NOW >>