October 2007

In a few hours I’ll be leaving to the airport to head to Chicago for a week and then to Washington DC for a few days to attend a conference. This will be my second visit to the United States and I’m making sure I keep in mind some things I learned during my previous trip.

1. Never ever shop in K-mart. Half of the people working there are high on crack and another third suffering from serious psychological illnesses.

2 . If you see gay couples showing affection towards each other in public then too bad, get used to it.

3. If you’re going to eat bagels, then stay away from the horrendous ones sold at Dunkin Donuts.

4. Go to Hooters for anything except the food. Yuck.

5. If possible, attend another enjoyable show by the Blue Man Group.

6. When homeless people start bugging you too much, give them a cigarette. It will make them happy and they’ll leave you alone.

7. The easiest way to start a conversation with a hot chick who’s walking a cute dog is at first by completely ignoring her and focusing on the dog instead.

8. Never go to Starbucks, order hot vanilla and tell people behind the counter you’re allergic to coffee. They’ll console you as if someone in your family just died.

9. Never ever bug a club bouncer to let you in by telling him 19 is very close to 21. Oh no wait, that doesn’t apply anymore now. I’m already 21. Muahahaha!

10. Stop watching too many American gangster movies and quit being so paranoid. Walking late at night in major American cities isn’t that dangerous. Drive by shootings don’t happen every two seconds.

Ah yes, those are 10 important self-reminders I’ll keep in mind. Now I have to get back to packing my two small bags.

Later!

Eid Mubarak to everyone celebrating today. Me? Not yet. This is the last day of Ramadan where I am. I’ll be celebrating it tomorrow in the sky (while on flight).

By the way, check out this interesting web magazine on culture called The Worldly. They have a nice article on Arabic food. I’ve been eating a lot of it during Ramadan.

Anyways, again, Eid Mubarak to all! Have a good one!

I’m guessing by now most of you have heard about the OneVoice initiative to collect a million Palestinian and Israeli signatures (or something like that) and then hopefully bring peace between the two sides by mobilizing the moderates.

My first reaction was “awww, how wonderful. Yes, and meanwhile my grandmother and I will go plant some flowers on the moon.” Eventually though, I watched the videos here and I liked what I saw. They shut up the cynic in me.

As much as I doubt this will actually bring peace in the political sense, it has (to a certain extent) already brought about peace on a social level. Seeing Palestinian and Israeli mothers under one roof interacting peacefully with each other and attempting something involving mutual sincere goodwill puts a big smile on my face.

At least these hundreds of thousands involved from both sides aren’t inclined to choke each other to death. You can’t deny it. It’s good to see and it’s a testament to the power of grassroots activism.

In the meantime, as most of us are caught up in the euphoria of the movement, OneVoice is under attack from both sides. Electronic Intifada on one side, and an angry Jewish lady leaving emotionally charged comments on the other.

Ah, nobody said peace was going to be easy. What’s important is that we strive towards practicing it on an individual level with each other. If only someone, anyone, in a position of power simply tried implementing my great plan for world peace, the “crazy” Middle East shall see centuries of tranquility.

As for OneVoice, apparently it’s a farce.

Oh well, the Drama continues and the best part?

No matter how cynical you want to be, there will always be a part of you hoping for a better tomorrow.

Disclosure: My friend Khailee is on the team behind SocialRank. I’m not doing this to be nice or as a favor to him but simply because their super cool idea really excites me. Furthermore I have no financial interests involved.

I get so damn happy every time a new blog on Sudan pops up (especially when it’s authored by a Sudanese). Lately they’ve been appearing at the rate of two or a three a month. Those are just the ones I discover on my own, not even those many possibly existing ones I’ve never heard of.

My happiness is however juxtaposed by an increasingly bad headache. With more blogs on Sudan to read, I am having a harder time finding the hot posts of the day. It’s annoying going through each blog trying to find an interesting story or discussion.

Not anymore. We now have Sudan’s DailyVoices, a site powered by SocialRank (and which I requested the SocialRank team to make). Everyday it displays the top 15 popular posts and blogs on Sudan. How does it do that?

Well, SocialRank is a super cool mathematical algorithm which monitors the activity and social interactions occurring in the “Sudan blog community” real-time and determines what’s popular! More on how it works here.

Sudan’s DailyVoices is only one tiny part of DailyVoices (which was very recently launched). DailyVoices is planned to become the biggest global blog-powered website with sections dedicated for each country and every major city on the planet! By aiding in the discovery of new cool blogs and showing what’s hot, it will definitely solve a problem many of us bloggers and blog readers (especially busy ones) are increasingly facing.

Yaaay to SocialRank and Sudan’s DailyVoices! The Sudanese blogosphere just got its first aggregator and best of all - a filtered one.

I hear one of the countries next on the list is Iraq. I can’t wait. No more pain going through the many Iraqi blogs available online.

Here’s a video which explains what SocialRank is all about (it’s only a minute and a half long).

The techie in me is excited about this! If you have any questions drop them in the comments section. Yaaay!

PS: There are other non-DailyVoices websites powered by SocialRank on topics like Atheism, Feminism, cats and kittens, marketing, biking and even knitting! Yes, KNITTING! I had no idea people actually blogged about knitting!!

UPDATE: Check out The Blue America Vs The Red America.

A few days ago I watched Hart’s War, starring Colin Farrell, Bruce Willis, and Terrence Howard as American prisoners of war in a Nazi military camp. I am so tempted to watch it again even though I’m busy.

What a super engaging movie!

At first glance you’d think it’s just another story about WWII. It’s not. The script is brilliantly written and the movie skillfully directed. It doesn’t focus on action scenes much. It’s the very human story in it that’s so captivating.

• Honor
• Courage
• Racism
• Loyalty
• Dedication
• Sacrifice

You have to watch it. It has officially replaced Cinderella Man Last Samurai and made it into my list of the top 15 favorite American movies of all time (yes, yes, I know, I know. I actually have a list of favorites).

It’s been so long since the last time I watched a movie I enjoyed this much. It leaves a strong emotional impact on you.

Meanwhile my friend is bugging me to stop watching American propaganda. Whatever.

Hart’s War? Excellent movie. If you liked those, I predict you’ll like this one.

Remember this post I wrote a few days ago?

The majority of my blogging when I first started was aimed at explaining the complexities and correcting the inaccuracies, the most famous ones being the whole “Arabs Vs Africans” and “rebels: good, government: bad” narratives.

Well, JMac (someone who understands well what Darur is about) just wrote a review about a documentary on Darfur called The Devil Came on Horseback which she recently watched (and which I haven’t watched yet)

I’ll preface by saying that I appreciate all that Brian Steidle did while in Sudan and the fact that he was interested enough in what was going on there, to volunteer to work with the AU. But so many things in the film didn’t sit right with me.

… he introduces the 2 major rebel groups (there are now at least 10), and actually says something to the effect of “these groups are fighting for their rights under a repressive government, this is why they fight.” If you knew little about the situation in Darfur, you’d walk away from this film thinking those groups were somehow heroes in all this. RUBISH. Again, there is no “good” or “bad” guys here, toting guns around. They are all BAD GUYS.

Read the whole review here.

I wasn’t surprised at all about what the movie portrayed according to JMac’s account. It’s unfortunately the same simplistic narrative spiced up with the “if the US government sees these photos, they’ll send troops and end this right now” type of very heartening but dangerously naive thinking all too commonly associated with the Darfur cause in America.

US intervention could (and I strongly suspect will) stop the killing - but only momentarily. After that, the conflict will only get worse. Why? Two main reasons. Strong nationalistic sentiments and jihad (you can read more here).

Towards the end of the review JMac asked a very good question:

(I am still trying to learn how to be an effective advocate. Perhaps repeating simple phrases about a complex situation IS the best way to be effective?)

I’ve come across unique opinions saying the main reason the American people didn’t care about Congo as much as they care about Darfur now is because the marketing was bad. A simple “black and white” narrative is apparently much more effective to market than an accurate yet complex one.

Many consider it a dilemma. I don’t. Uninformed opinions have the potential to develop into an effective lobbying force demanding horrible solutions as we are currently witnessing.

The current dominant Darfur narrative needs some “tweaking”. Maintaining its emotional impact is easy. A picture speaks a thousand words.

Done. It’s not difficult.

On a related note, what I find funny and so ironic about the Darfur cause in America is that most of those calling for US intervention in Darfur are the same people calling for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq!

Global Voices Online has been doing a great job covering the events. The whole episode is a perfect example of the power of new media at informing and leaking “forbidden” news.

I know my apologies might be starting to get too repetitive, so I apologize for the apologizing. The internet connection has been annoyingly slow these past few days. I’m also in my final year and academic tasks keep piling one after the other.

There has also been something else. I’ve been going through some serious introspection and there is a lot that I wish to share in a long coherent post. It’s a bunch of things - personal, philosophical and sociopolitical - all wrapped in one. Yes, I know I have been procrastinating but I will get to it.

On the 13th of October I leave to the United States for two weeks to attend a big international conference in Washington DC which I have been invited for. It should be fun! I’ll spend one week in Chicago before the conference with my brother. I’ll have a lot of free time to blog and finish up my drafts there.

Meanwhile, I have not been happy with the overall quality of this blog. I want to focus on writing long well-thought out unique and original posts, not many short ones (quality, not quantity). Content is king. Hence, I have come up with a new strategy that I want to implement but I don’t wish to alienate you guys (the current regular readers) with it.

I would like to oblige myself to writing one quality post three times a week, so that means three posts per week. That’s it (unless I’m free). Given my strong desire for improved posts, time to comment more frequently, requests for articles by well-known media outlets, and a busy schedule that will only get worse, this new blogging strategy will work out much better (for the both of us).

What do you think?

Here’s why:

General Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the African Union Mission in Sudan, gave an interview to the BBC’s Orla Guerin a week or so ago.

… what has got the Khartoum government hot and bothered a week later?

… his choice of military heroes included Ariel Sharon

Wonderful! The man who got a mere slap on his wrist for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

There are hundreds of blog on Darfur out there in the blogosphere. Most are unfortunately parroting the same crap they read or hear in the media. There are many inaccuracies floating around (too many). The majority of my blogging when I first started was aimed at explaining the complexities and correcting the inaccuracies, the most famous ones being the whole “Arabs Vs Africans” and “rebels: good, government: bad” narratives. Early and long time readers of this blog know that it’s “Bad Vs Worse”.

(For the sake of new readers, I’ll dig up all the important posts I wrote regarding the aforementioned and I’ll arrange them in the “Best of this Blog” section.)

Anyways, today I want to bring your attention to two excellent blogs which don’t contain the usual and annoying inaccuracies you see elsewhere.

Andrew Heavens, a journalist, has been writing a nice series of short posts at his blog. He’s now based in Sudan. Rob Crilly is also a journalist who travels to Sudan quite often. In fact he just returned from Darfur back to Nairobi recently. They’ve got some good stuff and by going through their posts, one can observe they have a deep understanding of what’s happening.

See what Rob Crilly has to say in his post “Shades of Gray“:

Every time I visit Sudan or write about the conflict in Darfur, I am struck by the same feelings of inadequacy. By and large the crisis there is badly reported.

… Nevermind the fact that everyone in Darfur is black and African, and the term Arab is often used by tribes to signal that they are nomads and aspire to some sort of “higher” social status. If the rest of that analysis was true, it was maybe only true for a month or so in 2004. Things are very different now. “Arabs” have joined the rebels and the government has its own “black, Africans”.

… I also met a former rebel commander in El Fasher. He had quit the movement two years earlier after becoming frustrated at the leadership’s preference for using civilian villages as bases. “They seemed to want to use civilian suffering caused by government and Janjaweed attacks in their PR campaign,” he told me in the offices of the human rights organisation where he now works.

… The rebels have a reasonable argument that their province has been marginalised for decades. My point is that there is more to a thinking, sensible, reasoned analysis than simply believing that it’s a case of good guys against bad guys.

Told ya!

Other good blogs you may check are Sudan Watch, Jan Pronk’s blog and especially SSRC Blogs where Alex De Waal writes. Oh and obviously this one.

Apparently it was a nasty attack (the nastiest so far). The reasons? Well, if you ask me I’ll tell you the same ones most of the time: looting weapons and equipment. The AU condemns it and so does the US. Yaaay!

Bleh. Big deal. Great timing too. Negotiations are still going and so far? Nothing substantial.