If any one still reads this...

I"m in Jerusalem now, but I haven't posted because I don't want any written records of what I see and do out here. Sorry about that.

Stupidity never ceases...

I woke up at 2 p.m. today and found this video while looking around the web. There are many things that should be discussed (why is it that no one discusses these things? I mean there are loads of other videos about the same thing and pretty much every book in Barnes and Nobles talks about the dangers of Islam, but......no one REALLY discusses this.....you know what I mean?). Hats off to the courage of the German government to recognize the threat of the Muslim population. If only there was something they could do to encourage a "pure religion" or maybe a "master religion." It is clear that the film implies that Muslims are not on the level of Christians so you can call them....I don't know....maybe sub-Christians. Yes that works until you can replace Christian with Human. I wonder if Israelis can see the irony in this.

The video concludes saying Christians should have more babies and "spread the gospel with the whole world." Yes, there should be a "Crusade" to spread the world and convert those evil Muslims. We should go to the Holy Land, drive out most of the population, invade other Muslim countries, and establish military bases in all the Muslim countries. That would be a worthy "Crusade" indeed.

On a serious note (the only one of this whole post), this reminds me of another documentary I saw on youtube called Zeitgeist. They talk about two totally different subjects but the tone and style seem pretty much the same. They connect various different events to create a more grand plot that capitalizes on peoples' fears about certain events and exploit those fears to maximum effect. Everyone who disagrees with this is either a mindless sheep or evil terrorist. They both also have vague conclusions for how to deal with this (although having more babies is a concrete step, little is given beyond that). Here is something the turn back the tide of stupid.

P.S. The video on Islam is posted by the youtube account friendofmuslim. Think about the last time you had a friend who was this scared of you when they saw you. Were they a true friend?

goodbyes

Yesterday we had a goodbye party for a friend who is leaving for Bahrain. Although I was kind of bitter for awhile about somethings that had happened here in Egypt, I really enjoyed coming here and would not have traded this opportunity for anything else. I was riding in a cab and looking out at everything going on in the streets and felt oddly at peace for some reason. Maybe I just feel this way because last night I booked my ticket to Turkey and leave in two weeks. Hopefully this last two weeks will wrap up everything that has happened in Egypt. I am also now doing a blog in Arabic. If you know Arabic you should check it out.

A long time passed...

It's been awhile since I've updated this because I could never keep prospective posts focused. Life in Egypt has slowed to a grinding halt. What was once exciting faded when I realized there isn't that much to do in Egypt. At least it seems that way. People mostly use their free time by going to coffee shops and gossiping about others (even though it is expressly forbidden in Islam). There are night clubs but they are full of sketchy types who will try to take your money at every turn if they think you are American. Worse is that Palestine feels a million miles away from here. There are posters from Gaza already torn and faded on all the buildings and trains but little else. The country that was once the capital of the non-aligned movement and the center for the PLO has been tamed and given up on such aspirations like that.

It's possible that there is more of Egypt to see but at this point I've had so much trouble with scamers and people who never show up that I doubt I'll see it any time soon. Well guess its time to hit Dave's ESL Cafe and see what jobs are around.

Cairo

This weekend I was able to go to Cairo which was amazing. It is as crowded as New York if not more and there are no traffic rules that people follow. Aside from that and the polluted air, its not so bad. It was amazing to see this really ancient city that has been inhabited for thousands of years. However, you can recognize the many transformations it has gone through. There is so much history here that there are many old buildings that look historic that are being neglected. It looks like the Egyptian gov't is focusing its money on preserving the big tourist attractions like the Pyramids so it can keep that tourist economy flowing.

Of course there is more to Cairo than "old Cairo." A friend of mine took me to the City of the Stars mall which was really something. In some ways it was like other malls although they recreated the historic Khan El Khalili bazaar (which was apparently better than being in the REAL Khan El Khalili bazaar). It was a showcase of the extravagant Egypt that I hadn't seen until this point.

Suspicious activity

So this morning I learned from my mom that my debit card was unfrozen by my bank after my mom told them that I was in Egypt and attending the TEFL program. What had happened was that my bank had noticed large transactions coming in from Egypt and suspected that it was fraud by the size of the transactions and the fact that they are coming in from Egypt. While I was unhappy that my bank didn't stop and think that it is possible I could travel to Egypt(transactions from the States should have ceased by now), I guess I am happy that my bank is trying to look out for me by freezing my card when they think fraud is involved(in their defense I never did tell them that I was leaving). However it has lead me to think about who you can really trust sometimes.

Everyone in Egypt has been really friendly so far. Sometimes though if the person being friendly is staying in front of a store or restaurant, there is always the feeling that they are being nice just so you will buy something. Some of the owners manage to come off as more sincere than others based on how much they talk with you and how desperate they are to have you come in their store. However, I still find most people in Egypt very trustworthy and hospitable.

Although we have talked to many different people, most of us on the program haven't really developed any local contacts outside of the people affiliated with TEFL. We are staying in a shared apartment that is enclosed with a gate. It feels very nice and secure but the situation seems to have a habit of pushing all the people on the program closer together while isolating us from the locals to an extent. The ironic thing is that even when walking the streets at night we feel completely safe and still talk to people normally.

The reason I am thinking about this is that meeting local Egyptians is what can make or break our time here. No matter how many monuments a person sees, they will not learn about Egypt unless they make friends with local Egyptians. This is the first time I traveled to a country without having some good friend who was there or from there. When I came I didn't know what to really expect from Egypt. But it has been amazing so far so now I just need to meet some actual Egyptians. It comes with time but hopefully that time will be short.

The story so far.

Sorry for not writing earlier but I wanted to get some handle on what's going on before I wrote my first entry on Egypt. I've been here for almost a day and a half but it has been exciting. First at Cario International we almost missed our ride because me and another student named on the program thought we were being picked up form a terminal we landed in but when we tried to go back the taxi driver couldn't find the terminal. Luckily my Arabic came in handy as the driver spoke very little English. However, our driver managed to find us and take us to our apartments.

Technically, I'm not staying in Alexandria itself but Al-Agami, a small suburb 30 minutes from the city center. I wouldn't mention it so much except that it annoys me when people from Niles and Glenview go around telling people they are from Chicago. Those places are nothing like Chicago and this place isn't like Alexandria as I've learned. I will forgo mentioning the trash that my friend semi-expert is so tired of hearing about that comes out of every news story on Egypt but it is there.

What I should mention is the driving situation. Basically it is like any major city minus driving rules. People zip around as they please without regard to lane or what the other car is doing. Somehow the Egyptians make it work. Pedestrians will also run out in the middle of the street as they please but I have no seen an accident yet. Any one familiar with Egypt realizes that in the Middle East the real threat is not terrorism but driving (this holds true for pro-western "we are always under attack" Israel). It is one of the signs of a general feeling of disorganization and lax attitude that surrounds life in Egypt. However the reasons for that are many and I will discuss them in future posts as I observe life here more.

Of course it should also be mentioned how generous the people here have been. Walking down the street everyone has said "hi" and "good morning." In general Egyptians love having guests and it is part of the way of life (40 percent of the country's income comes from tourism). It is really heart warming and I hope I will be able to get to know some people around here more personally. After all isn't the point around here to meet Egyptians? Anyway I will get back with more details and when it is not 4 in the morning.

Gaza

The massacre in Gaza has entered its 4th day as Israeli Occupation Forces continue to bombard the Gaza Strip. 400 Palestinians have been killed as well as four Israelis. Obama, who has been very vocal on the economy and the Mumbai terrorist attacks has been unusually silent. Obama now hides behind President Bush as his rhetoric closely mirrors Bush's. They both blame Hamas as the sole party responsible and talk on and on about Israel's right to self defense but never a word about any Palestinian right to self defense. So one has to wonder if anything is really going to change. Obama use to talk about speaking to our enemies as well as our friends yet will not engage with Hamas. If this is the case, what can he possible hope to achieve in negotiating with Iran? How then can he be any different from Bush with Iraq? If he remains tied up in Iraq, what can he do in Afghanistan? And if he will not break with Bush on foreign policy, why should we expect him to break with Bush domestically? After everything we have done to ourselves and the rest of the world, we did not get the change we need but the change we deserve and the Palestinians are paying the price. Maybe this time so many will die that the world must wake up but I hope it doesn't come to that. Many who supported him are finally waking up to Obama's hypocrisy and are trying to call him on it. I suspect they will be disappointed.

God bless my homeland: Norway

They have created this game where you can throw a shoe at Bush. Seriously Norway rocks.

Working for Middle East airlines?

Note that everything you see in the boxes is a requirement. No lie.

Actual Change?

Although this is only a rumor, I'm putting it up anyway. I have my doubts on whether there would be an actual NATO deployment into Palestine but I think it would be better. Even though it looks like trading one occupation for another, I'm sure it would take a less generous view towards settlements than the Israeli gov't even though the U.S. is dominated by the Likud party. Also, it would be a good way to get the American gov't directly involved and finally beat American liberals over the head with the cognitive dissonance many displayed over being against the Iraqi occupation but supporting the occupation of Palestine. Put simply those people hate America. The good part about NATO (as oppose to a purely American force) is that there is involvement by the European countries which is more supportive of Palestine than the U.S. It may only be a slight step, but I think this would be a step for the better.

Not what I expected from Haaretz...

For anyone who thought Haaretz can't deliver good coverage of anything outside Israel and Palestine, check this out.

Sweet sounds of blowback...

I was surprised this article appeared on CNN.

I honestly didn't know that this was done by an Israeli film maker. It looks like the Clarion Fund didn't anticipate that the spotlight might start to be shined on them and their secret dealings. I'm not sure if the organization's funding is really coming from Aish Hatorah, but the people who work for the Clarion Fund are or were employees of Aish Hatorah. The Clarion Fund is even based at the same address as Aish Hatorah (the New York branch). I think there is a very good case that the Clarion Fund should lose its tax exempt status for electioneering and that it should be investigated if the Clarion Fund is a foreign supported entity with the intent on influencing the U.S. election.

Shu?!?!?

If anyone can explain what is happening in this picture on the Lebanese Internal Security Forces website I would really like to know.

If you don't know Arabic DON'T F*%$IN USE IT!

One of the things I that I think will be missed from the Biden-Palin debate is this gem by Biden "There have been 7,000 madrassas build along [the Pakistani] border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Oh really? Because the word Madrassa literally means school. It can be an Islamic school but it doesn't have to be. You can have an Islamic Madrassa or you can have a public Madrassa. So Biden's quote translates basically to this "There have been 7000 schools built along that border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Speaking of consistency, I'm waiting for the Stop the Madrassa coalition to fulfill its promise and shut down every school as its name suggests. Maybe while we are at it we should shut down all Christians, Jewish, and Islamic schools to stop the preaching of religions.

Of course to be fair Biden isn't the only one who does it. Ever since September 11th, we've seen commentators use Arabic words like "Shahid" or "Jihad" but rarely other Arabic words like "salaam"(peace) or "Zakat" (purification or growth, usually in reference to alms giving). I wonder what the point of using Arabic words have been aside from making Arabs out to be evil and inhuman. People need to either learn the language or stop using the words.

a cultural challenge to psychologists

I was recently reading a post about domestic violence in Syria and the article it links caught my eye. The article states,

"Muna Al Assad, a lawyer volunteering at Good Shepherd, says its counseling--for both Muslim and Christian women--often focuses on reconciliation because divorce has such negative consequences in Syrian society. Few battered women, she said, choose to take their cases to court.

"Even if the woman considered going to the legal system, where she might get partial fairness, people around her will resent her if she is strong enough to do it," Al Assad says. "They will outcast her because normally the person who committed the violence is her husband, father or brother."

Al Assad has worked on 13 domestic violence cases in 17 months. Of these, only one resulted in divorce. In that case the victim's family supported her."

Women's shelters in the States often focus on empowering the victim to leave the abuser but in this case it seems that the situation would render that approach ineffective. On the other hand, I could not imagine anyone who handles these cases ever recommending that the victim returns to the abuser to try to reconcile with them. Although I'm sure there are plenty of psychologists here in the States who would love for nothing more to go to Syria and impose American methods for dealing with domestic violence, I'm sure that that would cause more harm than good in the end as it sometimes does in situations when help is forced on people whether they ask for it or not.

So are there any alternative ways to deal with this? Or is this another situation where only two mutually-exclusive choices exist (i.e. American methods or Syrian methods)? I've thought about it a lot but I'm just not sure. What do you think?

Home and out to Dry

So I've been home for 11 days running around throwing my resumes at various universities while hanging around the house. Unfortunately the prospects of finding something to do in cross-cultural psychology over the next six months seems to get slimmer every time I log online. I've gotten to the point of writing random professors in the field of cross-cultural psychology asking for what to do next. My senior psychology capstone was focused more with the feel good talk on values instead of giving us direction and goals. Really though its not so bad aside from the fact that I'm not really doing anything with the Middle East or psychology.

I've been starting to catch some flak from some friends of mine about the whole job thing because they face greater obstacles than I do when finding one. When I was in Lebanon, many people were really preoccupied with the idea of moving to the U.S. and making money. The idea became this grand fantasy and was put on a pedestal. Then enter me, this twenty-something American kid who is really close to a B.A. in psychology who choices to come to Lebanon when I could easily stay in American and have a decent job. Needless to say it blew a lot of people's minds. Even my good friends were at first trying everything in their power to persuade me to go back to the States and finish my studies there before coming back many years down the road. Although the more they got to know me, the more they supported my desire to stay in Lebanon. However, what I was doing was destroying a lot of people's fantasies. After all, if America has everything, then why is someone like me trying to go to great lengths to stay in Lebanon?

Of course fantasy isn't reality. Sooner or later everyone will have to face up to the fact that their fantasy isn't what they made it out to be during the long time they spent pursuing it. Though many of my friends thought they would just want to live in American, some of them would probably get sick of the differences and miss their friends and family back home. Even in America you still have to pay for stuff, you have to deal with rude people, you still get rejected by the opposite sex sometimes, you still have to deal with violent crime, there are still generally bad days, stupid people, and the list goes on. The real problem is that over time problems become externalized and projected onto these fantasies while the root of the problem is not dealt with. Fortunately, most people realize this sooner or later.

Khalas, bitti, done

Well this is my first time writing here for awhile because now is the first time I got free time to write on this blog. However, the program is over which is what is giving this free time. Beirut has also been very quiet since the prisoner exchange so I have really had anything that I urgently wanted to right about. At least until now. First some reflections on the program. My professors were great and in the in-class time was great and really helped but the amount of homework assigned left me feeling a little cheated. It was enough busy work that kept me from seeing more of beirut, making more friends and hence kept me from interacting with more locals (granted some of my friends are from places like Jordan and Saudi Arabia but you get my point), and the homework left me feeling so drained that I didn't want to learn anymore arabic or speak it. Granted it is incredibly difficult to run a program like this and learn a lot of arabic in a month but still I was hoping for something more like my turkish program last year even though that was four months.

The other thing I was thinking about a conversation I had with a teacher and a friend of mine yesterday. We were talking about being pride and being self-critical in the Arab world. Despite the image Americans have of all Arabs only criticizing the U.S. for anything bad that happens in their lives, the majority of my friends spend the most time blaming themselves sometimes I think unnecessarily. What also happens is they think I am way to self-critical of my country. My teacher put it best when he explained the pride that exists here and criticizing your own country is like criticizing family which can make you look really crazy. As long as my friends understand that I love my country its fine but otherwise its bad. In most cases it was pretty minor but I had a friend who when he heard I wanted to study in AUB for my masters in psychology he passionately tried to dissuade me from studying in Lebanon and tried to get me to study in the States until he realized that I was firmly and genuinely committed to studying cross-cultural psychology in Lebanon. I'll be writing more over the next couple of days as I unpack my whole experience here in Lebanon to make up for the lack of updates during the program.

Sick on a busy day.

So I ate some chicken last night which has made me a little sick and I had to skip class. This is a strange day to be sick considering there is a lot of celebration in Beirut over the prisoner swap with Israel. Everywhere gun fire can be heard in Beirut as people are celebrating. In the meantime I'm worried about being sick since it will hinder my ability to learn Arabic. Everything seemed fine over the weekend as we went to byblos which was really beautiful. I took lots of pictures and it was just nice to be with everyone having a good time. Now there is a mid-term on friday and I'm hoping I will be able to drag myself to class tomorrow so I can review for the test. Guess I'll see where things go these next couple of days.

Beirut blues...

So this weekend I finally got out of AUB and saw some cool stuff. On of the areas was the Shalita refugee camp. The place reminds me a lot of Palestine with the open air markets, the massive poverty, and the love of a homeland lost. Seeing the camps has been one of my big objectives in Beirut and I'm hoping to organize a trip there. In case people were wondering, Shalita is an open area that is not armed so traveling there is fine but it would help to have a guide who knows the history of the camp. It was strange but the posters around the camp feature Arafat along with Rafiq and Saad Hariri. It's not too unlikely but I would have never have guessed seeing them together like that. As we drove though you could smell the argile and various fruits and vegetables that were being sold. I know I'll be back at some point.

On sunday we were able to travel to Beit Eddine thanks to Nadine. I was able to take a lot of really nice pictures that I hope to get onto facebook soon inshallah. The area was very beautiful and I'm really glad I got away from AUB. It's not that I don't like this place but I feel suffocated and I want to experience the part of Lebanon that doesn't have as much western influence.