Anas Qtiesh

"This is your kiss goodbye you dog!!"

I’m reposting this picture from Yaman Salahi‘s blog, one of my favorite Syrian Bloggers.

Nothing more to say really..

Picture taken from a magazine ad for a local radio station.

Today, you can hardly walk the streets of Damascus without passing by quite a few young men and women wearing Palestinian scarves, which at one point became a symbol of the resistance and the “Fida’ees”, a symbol of freedom fighters and an ever lingering dream of returning to Palestine which constituted an integral part of the identity of many Arab generations.

But are they really wearing Palestinian scarves? as I recall the original scarf was white with black patterns exclusively, while the ones you see everyone wearing on the streets of Damascus come in a variety of wild colors to appeal to the different tastes of fashionable Damascenes, and to mix and match with any colors of the shirts or shoes they might be wearing. The symbol is now reduced to a mere fashion statement, it is what the “cool kids do.” and the irony of it all is that you can hardly find anyone wearing the original white scarf, which is by their standards plain and totally not cool!

This reminds of something that happened with a friend of mine; he saw someone (a college student) wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, so he asked him: “why are you wearing this T-shirt?” and that guy replied: “أخي بالمجمل أنا بحب المطربين الأجانب” [dude, I like foreign singers]!

My friend and I developed a habit of yelling “حيو الفدائية” every time one of those fashionistas pass us by in the street.

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بدون تعليق

من جريدة الوطن الصادرة صباح اليوم

The text reads: “A New Dawn For Humanity, 70 Days Till Bush Leaves the White House”

This was taken from the top of the front page of Al Watan Daily Newspaper.

هؤلاء

[جميع التعليقات مأخوذة من سيريا نيوز.]

ملتقى وطني حول جرائم الشرف
دمشق – رنا داود

بالتعاون ما بين وزارتي العدل والأوقاف تقيم الهيئة السورية لشؤون الأسرة ملتقى وطنياً حول جرائم الشرف وذلك في الفترة ما بين 14-16\10\2008 في قاعة الأمويين بفندق الشام. وذكر تقرير صادر عن الهيئة بأن سورية وضعت في مقدمة الدول التي تنتشر فيها هذه الجرائم وهي الخامسة عالمياً والرابعة عربياً في الوقت الذي تتبوأ فيه المرأة في سورية مكانة متقدمة في مختلف مواقع القرار سياسياً و اقتصادياً واجتماعياً، لذلك سارعت العديد من الجهات المعنية الفاعلة في الحقل الاجتماعي لتحديد نقاط الضعف في العديد من القوانين الوطنية وآخرها كان تشكيل الفريق النوعي لدراسة واقع الجرائم التي ترتكب باسم الشرف، كون المشكلة لا تكمن بعدد الجرائم التي ترتكب ولكن تكمن بألية ومنهجية التفكير وفي نمطيته وفي أعماق وأبعاد رؤيتنا لهذه المشكلة

ما دام القانون يجرم الضحية ويكافئ المجرم فليس هناك أمل في تغيير العقلية الجاهلية التي يفاخر بها مجتمعنا العربي العتيد، وطالما تتم ملاقاة المجرم بالزغاريد والأفراح كأنه فتح الأندلس فلا فائدة ترجى من أي ملتقى أو تجمع أو دراسة، وبما أن جميع “الجهات الفاعلة في الحقل الإجتماعي” بعيدة كل البعد عن صناع القرار و المشرعين فلن نرى أي تغيير في القانون نحو عقاب حقيقي للقتلة الذين في ظروف أخرى يحلمون بالحصول على الحد الأدني من العقوبة وهو عشر سنوات بينما قاتلو الشرف يستضافون لمدة ثلاثة إلى ستة أشهر ثم يعودون سالمين غانمين ليعيشوا في ثبات وبنين

ولكن أنا دائماً أحاول النظر إلى الجانب الإيجابي من الأمور، على الأقل يمكننا القول بأن سوريا احتلت مركزاً متقدماً عالمياً في شيءٍ ما، المركز الخامس في قلة الشرف

“So is it you [the Syrians] or the Iranians next on the American list?” Asked a friend of mine in a recent IM conversation, and continued with the following statement “well since both Syria and Iran are democracies and the people elected their governments and can hold them accountable for their actions, they deserve to face the American Wrath.”

I won’t comment on the fact that both regimes are democracies and people can hold their governments accountable. You can’t argue with that since both “repeatedly introduced themselves to the world as being democratic.”

The last outburst of American Wrath has cost the Iraqis 2 million lives and turned about 4 million of them into refugees scattered around the world. Iraqi young women – even minors – resorting/forced into prostitution just to keep there families from starving to death (I’ve personally came across families that can’t afford a daily meal of more than a couple of loaves of bread a day for the entire lot of 6-8 people!) Iraq’s infrastructure is devastated beyond repair, and new explosions are shedding Iraqi blood into the Euphrates so often that even news agencies lost interest in covering the daily hell on earth Iraqis are forced to live through as a consequence of American Wrath. But hey, they had it coming.

Saying that is worse than saying that rape victims brought it upon themselves by wearing revealing clothes, might as well advise them to lay back and try to enjoy it! Despite the “NO it’s not” answer I got when I asked, I still hope the whole idea was nothing more than a sick joke.