Rude Awakening

“God loves you, which is why he chose you to be a Christian like your mom”. “Allah loves you, which is why he chose you to be a Muslim like your dad”. I grew up hearing those phrases, and always wondered “but how do you know?”. “Didn’t he just tell the other ‘non-believers’ the same thing?”. Of course I never dared to ask out loud.
After many years, I see such expressions, in addition to others like “God gave me a sign to do so and so” or “Allah will choose what’s best for me”, as a mere manifestation of humankind’s egocentric nature, and its constant need to prove that “yes, the world does revolve around me”. This is also the likely source for the need to believe in an omniscient, omnipotent god who is vigilantly protecting you against all the evil and randomness out there.
It’s true that individuals can not thrive without the constant reassurance from those around them that they are smart, beautiful, unique, etc. And without the belief that we are taken care of by a supreme power, many would aimlessly float in a gloomy existentialist vacuum. But this becomes a serious issue when it ignites ideologies based on discrimination and condescension. There is no "Chosen People". For once, science and religion both agree that all humans come from the same source – of course they soon diverge when it comes to what that source is. Similarly, there is no "The One" destined to save humanity from hollow simulations of how an ideal life should be. Last thing I heard, Neo succumbed to a hefty job offer from Microsoft and is also starting his own line of trendy trench coats for the fall-winter 2009 season.
Sorry, but that's as good as it gets...

Painting by Rene Magritte

Cafe de Flore

A sliver from "the City of Light"....

McFacts

Ok that’s it! I’m officially fed up with all the mosque-talk and mass emails ranting about our “duty” to boycott America, Denmark, or whichever nation happens to be the favorite “enemy of the umma” for the season. Before madrassa-educated sheikhs start meddling with the country’s affairs and its economic decisions, they need to understand a little bit about the dynamics of international markets.
First of all, there is no longer such a thing as a purely “American product”. A typical hamburger sold at a McDonald’s store in Qatar, for example, is possibly made of Brazilian beef, Jordanian tomatoes, Egyptian wheat, and other imported ingredients sold to you by a Filipino worker at a venue managed by an Indian, and owned by a Qatari businessman. The brand is American alright, but the sandwich hardly is. And most of what you paid goes to the farmers, workers, and business owners who participated in the making of the sandwich, many of whom could very well be Muslims by the way. So boycotting that sandwich really means hurting them more than the brand itself.
Add to that, foreign franchises aren’t really as bad as many people think, and no it’s not the modern form of colonialism. Those annoyingly-identical stores actually help the economy of the host country by providing job opportunities and paying taxes to its government, which in turn is used to improve living standards. It is also within the corporate social responsibility plan of many of those companies to give back to the community and fill in the gaps left by the government.
At a time when smart countries are dying to attract more foreign investment and more international cooperation, it is ridiculous to call for an “independent Muslim industry”. It’s simply not feasible - not even theoretically.
So if you want to stop eating hamburgers do it out of health, aesthetic, or any other number of reasons. But please don’t think you’re fulfilling some kind of a religious duty and then come rubbing it in our faces!

Hot Property!

Corporate espionage, secret agents, and conspiracy schemes are all part of Pat Choate’s book “Hot Property, The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization”. In his Hollywood-movie-like account, he talks about what he sees as the main challenges facing intellectual property (to be more specific American intellectual property) at a time when other nations are “secretly conspiring in the dark to snatch those brilliant ideas while smoking on their thick fat cigars in the backroom of some family-owned restaurant”. Ok, he doesn’t literally say that. It’s just the mental image he gives you. Of course, piracy and counterfeiting are serious problems that pretty much every country suffers from. But Choate jumps to conclusions on how “evil” Germany, Japan, and China resorted to tactics aimed at strengthening their economies using American patented innovations. He recounts one example after another of how countries have stolen one brilliant idea after another from naïve American inventors earlier in the 20th century. However, he conveniently neglects to mention that the budding American nation in its early years chose no to respect foreign intellectual property and continuously infringed it until its national economy and industry were strong enough. This seems to be the case with many emerging economies. You can’t just single out Germany, Japan, or China, who are today among the main contributors to innovation patents. In general, Choate fails to make a solid case as he seems to have sacrificed depth and quality for the sake of quantity.

Final verdict: Not Hot.

Open Doors

Panting heavily and almost choking on his suppressed tears, Safi repeatedly banged on the recently-painted wooden door with convulsive angry fists. BANG! BANG! BANG...Pause for a breath…Banging resumes. It wasn’t until the woman in the neighboring apartment opened her door that Safi realized he had been knocking too loud for too long. Through the cracked door, a sweet aroma of freshly baked bread escaped and filled the air. She looked at the shaken boy with a sweet inquisitive smile.
“Hey you’re the son of Abu Safi, right? I saw your dad and his wife leave earlier this morning and I don’t think they’re back yet.”
“I’m…I’m sorry to bother you…I…Do you know when they’ll be back?…I really need to talk to him”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, dear.”
Hala saw that the boy was clearly troubled. Her maternal instinct simply could not shut him down, not another one.
“You can wait for them inside if you want. I was just about to boil some cinnamon tea. C’mon in”
“Really?…I mean are you sure you don’t mind?”
One smile was all the assurance he needed.

The furniture in the living room was simple, yet comfortable. An over-sized portrait of a young man hung on the central wall immediately stood out.
“That is my darling son, Fouad. He works in Kuwait.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t recall seeing him around before.”
Hala sensed that a light conversation could help ease down the boy’s nerves, so she continued.
“He has been working there since he was eighteen…I haven’t seen him since then, either.”
“How old is he now?”
“Next month he will turn 24. I was only 16 when I had him, but even at that age I knew he would be all the pride in my life. I still remember how I did everything I could so that he would become a great doctor, just like I and his late father always wanted him to be”. She added with a nostalgic guilty smile “I even threatened him if he doesn‘t go to medicine school I would deprive him of my blessings forever. See, I just wanted the best for him.”
After a sorrowful pause, she added “but he left at eighteen...just before he could go to university”
“I’m sorry to hear that Um Fouad…”
“Oh just call me Hala. So how‘s your mom doing? I only met her a couple of times before it happened… I mean the divorce. She always seemed very sweet.”
“Yeah…I really need to talk to dad about her before it’s too late…can you believe her? she’s completely gone out of her mind.”
“Kher, what is it?”
“Somebody must stop her. She wants to get remarried! At her age! Am I not enough for her? He must stop her!”
“But you‘re parents are divorced, so really…”
“She cannot do this. She cannot just abandon me…Next year I will turn eighteen so maybe I should also…”
Safi could feel the tears growing in his throat and threatening to drown his whole entity.
“Oh dear, my dear, come here. Don’t be cruel like that…Don‘t leave your mama.”
Hala impulsively engulfed him with her arms. Even as alien as Safi was to the concept of hugging, he felt found by her warmth.
“Stay…Just stay a while.”
Safi held her back as tight as he could.

Painting by Mario Mously

The Reader

Brilliant! That’s how I would describe “The Reader” in one word. The novel written by Bernhard Schlink is one of the deepest most moving books I have read in a while. It’s one of those stories that don’t just end after you turn the last page. But the disturbing events and questions haunt you and keep you thinking.
The story starts with the relationship between a fifteen-year old teenager, Michael, with an older Hanna (who in today’s Hollywood flashy terms would be called a cougar). The relationship is further complicated by power struggles, crippling dependence, and betrayals. However, their relationship is beyond naïve distinctions of right and wrong. In a sense, it transcends the average mundane love story in a tradition that is reminiscent of Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".
Throughout the next chapter we learn about Hanna’s past work in a concentration camp. Ironically, Michael is involved in the court that is supposed to condemn Hanna. The story audaciously humanizes those who have been readily labeled as “villains”. But at the same time, it does not fully exempt Hanna of the guilt and responsibility of what she had committed. Every detail about her character adds complexity and depth. For example, her passion for fine literature in the midst of the horrors of the concentration camp gives her both a humane and a villainous dimension. While the Holocaust is at the center of the novel, it doesn’t stop at that. The questions raised are universal questions on morality, love, and perceptions. The main characters are confused and complex. They are struggling to understand others and themselves, which makes any reader relate to them even if they haven’t been through the horrors, suffering, guilt and shame associated with the Holocaust. Simply put, this is not your average mopey Holocaust story as I first thought. It is deeper. It is more comprehensive. It is brilliant!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Ah, finally I’m done with the longest short novel ever! For some reason the 200-page novel entitled “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” seemed to infinitely drag on. Even though, Hamid has a good story to tell, something about a “conversation” in a monologue style seriously turned me off.
The story starts when Changez, a Pakistani from Lahore who studied and worked in the US, presumably accidentally meets a presumably American “tourist”. Changez invites the man for a cup of tea, and almost immediately spills his story about his experience in the US including some really personal details. Although grabbing random tourists and rambling on about my life, isn’t exactly my style, I continued reading the story hoping that something will actually happen. I was disappointed. All the main events happen in retrospect. Their truth and accuracy are even questioned at one point in the story. So, instead of traveling back in time with Changez and feeling involved in the story, I found myself sitting in a café with a chatty Pakistani and a suspiciously anxious American. Although, logically I should identify with Changez, I really felt more for the poor trapped “tourist” who had to sit for the whole evening listening to some guy ramble about a girl he almost had and a brilliant future he almost had. Sorry, but this one-sided conversation only reminded me of those abhorred Eid visits I had to sit through as a child to greet the older members of our extended family.
To be fair, Hamid raises some very good points about alienation, not just post 9/11, but about life in general. Most characters of the novel seemed to me like individual islands, each floating in his/her own direction. Of course, there is also the brilliant comparison between the harsh world of business and that of religious extremists. My guess is that the novel was short-listed for a Booker Prize for the ideas it raises. But apart from that, neither technique nor language really grabbed me.
Anyway, I see that Hamid has another novel entitled “Moth Smoke” about a fallen man from Lahore in an impossible relationship . Mmm, sounds a little familiar. Should I give it a try? Nope. Next, please.