ترددت أخبار مؤخراً تزعم بأني مشارك في مشروع شرق أوسط واحد Onemideast.org وأردت التوضيح على موقعي بأني ليس لي علاقة بالمشروع لا من قريب ولا من بعيد، وتفاجأت بوجود رابط موقعي على موقع المشروع وقد طلبت حذفه. كما أن موقع كلنا شركاء استخدم صورتي دون إذن بدل صورة عبد السلام الذي طلب حذف صورته من الخبر، وقد طلبت من الموقع حذف الصورة أيضاً.
أعيد التأكيد بأني ليس لي علاقة بالمشروع ولن أعلق بأكثر من ذلك.
I have been doing some intensive cartography lately. Yes, I’m literally putting Syria on the map.
Going to college in Damascus was a frustrating experience for quite a long time. I did not know the city nearly as well as I should have. I didn’t live in the heart of Damascus, but 30 minutes by servees (a microbus used for commuting in Syria) on a good day. When meeting people in parts of the city that I did not know, I was often too stubborn or too ashamed to ask for directions or help getting somewhere. That always ended with me asking questions to people I’m more comfortable asking, but also less likely to be able to help me; or walking aimlessly and asking people in the street who were as clueless as I was. Going to a new theater or cultural center was always a process of finding out the address and the best way to get to and fro the designated activity location.
Well, not for long. Thanks to Google’s Map Maker, other location-recognition-impaired people won’t have to suffer like I did. I’m now one of a group of volunteer users, or citizen cartographers as Google likes to call them, who have been drawing the entire map of Syria on Google Map Maker. We’re highlighting points of interest, businesses, streets, neighborhoods and just about everything in between. Eventually it will be available on a high quality, easy to search Google map that’s free to use for all people and platforms that have an active internet connection. There’s an intimidating learning curve to Map Maker; roads are hard to draw and they disappear after you first draw them because they need to be moderated before they show up. This means having to draw roads with no visual clues of your previous work. Drawing on water is a close analogy.
Today, March 12, is the World Day Against Cyber Censorship. Thus, it’s a perfect timing to finally pen down some of the ideas on the topic that I’ve intended to write for so long. Threatened Voices is a Global Voices Advocacy “collaborative mapping project to build a database of bloggers who have been threatened, arrested or killed for speaking out online and to draw attention to the campaigns to free them.”
As you can see from the map, Arabic speaking countries are a ‘hot area’ where many voices are threatened. I looked closely at the data to see what I can get out of it. My approach was to select a sample of the worst offenders and do a little comparison. I chose the following regimes for this mini-research project I did: Assad of Syria, Mubarak of Egypt, Ben Ali of Tunisia, Mohammed VI of Morocco, Saud of Saudi Arabia, Al Nahyan of UAE, and Sabah of Kuwait. Now wouldn’t it be interesting to see comparison between a regime’s years in power opposed to how many voices were threatened in those years? I thought so too and here’s what I found:
Voices Threatened vs. Years in Power*
Read the rest of this entry »
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كتب أنس أونلاين تدوينة بعنوان “انفصام الشخصية العلمانية العربية !” تساءل فيها عما إذا كان العلمانيون العرب يعانون من انفصام الشخصية بما أنهم يدعمون المقاومة الإسلامية المتمثلة بحزب الله وحماس على الرغم من أنهم يرفضون التصويت لها في انتخابات سياسية وقد يرفض بعضهم فكرة وجود أحزاب دينية سياسية من الأساس.
لن أتحدث عن المتشددين من الطرفين، سواء العلمانيين أم المتدينين، فكما لا يرغب العلماني بأن يفرض المتدين عاداته وطقوسه وتعاليمه عليه، لا يرغب المتدين بالمثل أن يفرض العلماني نمط حياة لا ديني عليه أو أن يمنعه من أداء بعض فروضه الدينية. نقاشي التالي يفترض وجود احترام متبادل بين طرفين يختلفان بوجهات النظر بشدة. صححوني إن كنت مخطئاً ولكنني أعتقد بأننا لا نريد العيش كما في السعودية حيث يتم فرض لباس معين على الأشخاص (يتعدى متطلبات الحشمة بشكل غير معقول) ويمنع فيه الاختلاط والتفاعل البريء بين الجنسين، وتمنع فيه النساء من قيادة السيارات والانخراط في العديد من مسالك العمل ويضرب فيه الناس في الشارع لقسرهم على الصلاة؛ وأيضاً لا نريد العيش في دولة كفرنسا تضطهد الأقلية الدينية المسلمة بحظر الحجاب أو النقاب مثلاً تحت غطاء حقوق المرأة وحقوق الإنسان.
في طرحه لوجهة نظره سأل أنس السؤال التالي:
كل هذا جيد ولكلّ جهة حقها بأن تؤمن بالأفكار التي تريد لكن … لماذا لا يثبت العلمانيون على مبادئهم وأفكارهم بنفس طريقة ثبات المتدينين والتمسك بمبادئهم؟
سأرد على السؤال بسؤال، عن أي المتدينين نتحدث؟ هل نتحدث عن متديني الخليج الذين لا همّ لبعضهم (كي لا أظلم الكل، ولكرهي للتعميم بشكل عام) غير الحديث عن ضرورة مواجهة المد الإيراني الشيعي (أو الفارسي حسب الحاجة والسياق) في المنطقة؟ أم عن متديني حركات المقاومة الإسلامية الذين تدعمهم إيران نفسها لمقاومة الإحتلال الإسرائيلي الغاشم؟ هل نتحدث عن متديني هيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر سيئة الصيت في السعودية؟ أم عن متديني الأسر الحاكمة في بعض الدول العربية الذين سُرّت أبواقهم الإعلامية بالهجمات الوحشية على المقاومة الإسلامية والمدنيين في لبنان وفلسطين وشمتت بهم بكل صفاقة؟
في النهاية هذا ليس موضوعي ولكني أردت أن أشير إلى افتراض خاطئ في الجملة التي اقتبستها، علينا التركيز على التفاصيل الدقيقة وحيثيات هذه المواضيع، كي لا نقع في مغالطات لمجرد تسرعنا بإطلاق تعميمات أقل ما يقال عنها أنها غير دقيقة.
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UNLIMITED OFFER! GET YOURS NOW, OR DON'T.
My RSS reader this morning brought some news that I’ve been anticipating for a long time now. The environmentally friendly Toyota Prius is now available in Syria. With an extraordinary fuel economy and a price tag to match: $60,000!
Car prices are always high in Syria because of jacked up customs and fees on purchasing new cars. But paying $15,000 just to register the car is outrageous, especially that there’s a presidential decree for reduced import and registration fees for eco-friendly hybrids. The car would still set you back $45,000 without the registration fee. I wish I were joking, or dreaming for the matter. A car that the fully equipped top model Prius V would cost 28K costs over twice as much! And judging by the specs on the model available in Syria it’s the cheaper 26K Prius IV model.
So If you happen to be in Syria, and hope to save 30 thousand dollars on gas, this car is definitely for you!
The Shorty Awards are unique awards for the Twitter community in several categories ranging between humor, entertainment, art, tech, politics, and many others. This year the politics category is on fire with Ali Abunimah becoming a finalist in the competition by popular vote. He basically swept the rug from under the feet of a racist Zionist spreading misinformation like a perfect propagandist tool while claiming to lead a “Jewish Internet Defense Force.” The problem is that David is blatantly racist, although he’s doing a poor job denying it; Most Jewish organizations/people are ignoring him or even outright shunning him. If you happen to have a twitter account and want to help Abunimah maintain his lead in the final round of votes you can go to the his shorty awards page and vote for him from there. Make sure you mention the reason you’re voting for him (e.g. because he supports equality and human rights.)
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I have been in the US for over seven months now. Sometimes a friend asks: “Do you miss Syria?” I always think about that and reply by saying that more than anything I miss the people (and sometimes the food). What makes a homeland is the people inhabiting it before the land itself. In a recent conversation with a Syrian friend whom I’ve never met, he was saying that he didn’t want to leave the country because he didn’t want to have to adapt to a new world and new people. Distance is becoming more and more irrelevant everyday. People of different cultures are becoming less alienated with every click of a mouse in each forsaken corner of the world. The only real challenge that traveling entails is leaving behind those whom you care about the most; Language is acquirable. Cultural customs are a breeze to get used to. A job or an education are attainable. But how easy is it to brew an indifference towards those closest to you?
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To motivate myself into writing more than one post a month over here; I will start a series of posts about the different projects, websites, and organizations that I have been involved with to various degrees recently.
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I really wanted to include something about Syria in this post, so I looked at Syria-news for inspiration. I can’t say that the news have changed much: Corruption. Embezzlement. A vicious circle of useless talks with Western officials. Another honor killing. Another major traffic accident with dozens injured or dead. The Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Diala el-Hajj Arif, is still an imbecile; I hate her with the heat of a thousand suns.
Things haven’t changed much.
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سَأعيشُ رَغْـمَ الـدَّاءِ والأَعـداءِ * كالنَّسْـر فـوقَ القِمَّـةِ الشَّمَّـاءِ
أرْنُو إلى الشَّمْسِ المُضِيئةِ هازِئاً * بالسُّحْبِ والأَمطـارِ والأَنواءِ
لا أرْمقُ الظِّلَّ الكئيـبَ ولا أرَى * مَا فـي قَـرارِ الهُـوَّةِ السَّــوداءِ
نشيد الجبار (هكذا غنّى بروميثيوس)، أبو القاسم الشابّي
Today is Blog Action Day, this year’s theme is Climate Change which many of you know is happening rapidly. Sea levels are rising at an increasing pace, and we’re losing glaciers and polar ice caps. Global action on the subject is a long way from being satisfactory or effective. The US demands China to lower their CO2 emissions because China is the worst offender when it comes to emissions. On the other hand, China demands that the US lower emissions since the US has the largest carbon print per capita. The blame game goes on and in the end – which is coming a lot sooner than we projected – all of us are losing. Read the rest of this entry »
Karim Arbaji has just been sentenced to three years in prison for defending human rights in Syria. Meanwhile, the Syrian blogosphere is bustling with posts advocating admirable and worthy campaigns. There’s the astounding campaign against masturbation, the noble Blogging Week for Moral Decay, and the enlightening campaign for Blogging Against Fossilized Thinking.
The background of this story is this post by Abu Fares, a response ridiculing the infamous call for a campaign against masturbation. The commentators on that post eventually came up with their own ideas for random blogging campaigns. In essence to further mock that blogger, and the perceived religious bloggers he’s associated with.
I have to say that upon reading about the anti-masturbation campaign I cracked up. Also, I posted about it on Global Voices, sans-sarcasm. Some people were amused by the idea and tweeted the link of the article and a friend of mine wrote to me saying that the campaigner is likely to have a crowd supporting his campaign that you could fit in a phone booth. So, many people find – me included – that idea outrageous, But does that warrant the ridicule of the blogger? Does that make it ok to put aside all the great words and thoughts I’ve seen many Syrian bloggers write on each of their blogs to combine forces to fight this supposed “common enemy” called religiousness?
Lock down all your traditional handicrafts workshops!
Visitors to Damascus can no longer visit the shisha/hookah/arkileh workshops, they’re off limits to tourists now. but why? one might ask. The story goes as such: one day Chinese tourists go visit one of those workshops with cameras and camcorders, regular tourist gear. Nothing scary there, yet!
The next thing the craftsmen know, and to their own dismay, is that China is flooding world markets with the same product at a cheaper price effectively taking a huge chunk of their market share. The only thing the poor guys could do do is ban all people from visiting their workshops in the hopes of preventing a future infiltrator from copying their trade secrets James Bond style.
After this unfortunate incident it is advised that craftsmen go after any camera-wielding-tourists with a stick. Unless, of course they make canes for a living. This is necessary to help the competitiveness the national industry sector, well except for the tourism industry I guess.
Where will they strike next?
بمناسبة عيد الشهداء
الشهيد كمال عبيد - 1973
إلى عموتي الحبيبة ليلو
لتذكريني حين يعزف الرشاش لحنه
ويضرب المدفع إيقاعه
حين ترتفع في السماء صرخة الحق
أن : إنا لعائدون
عمك
اليوم\الشهر\1973
