After my last post and the discussion that ensued with POSHLEMON on certain topics of architectural types & details found in Lebanon and Palestine, and their probable socio-historical context, I asked her to look into a few more buildings, specifically located in my hometown of Bint Jbeil. This is not a light subject for me. My family was expelled from the town with the first Israeli invasion in 1978, and endured a subsequent exile from there for the following 22 years; I myself was brought up first in Beirut and then in the West, cut off from a direct connection with my home town, and without a natural relationship with its land, its relics and itsهوا.
This state of waiting, longing, searching and dreaming that has accompanied many decades of my life has incarnated itself into my poetry (1) (2) (3) (4) and paintings, and has similarly been part of the writing and art of many Lebanese & Palestinian friends of my generation. (I will post in the near future about my paintings and the connotations of loss, place and identity in them.)
The war last year erased much of Bint Jbeil's architectural heritage; the Israelis targeted more specifically the center of town, which is the oldest and more significant part (culturally and archeologically.)
Therefore, far from just providing the esteemed Professor Posh with a few pictures to discuss, I've decided to make this a larger project of collecting and exploring those images. There are many images with which to grapple, and so I decided to move this discussion to a separate distinct blog. Is this super-obsessive on my part? Yes. Is that bad? I don't know.
The exploration of these images may be an academic excercise for Posh (I don't mean to say "academic" in the disconnected or trivial sense, because this is actually the subject matter of her professional academic pursuits,) but for me, it is an exploration of heritage, memory and self.
So go ahead and click on the archway below to go the new blog:
In the photograph below, a Mu'eddin calls to prayer atop a minaret in Jerusalem. The architectural style of the minaret seems to me not that dissimilar from minarets found in many villages across Lebanon. (Maybe Poshlemon can elaborate on that topic and offer art history nutrition for those of us hungry for that dish of knowledge.)
date of photograph: 1940, not that long ago.
(click for larger image)
_
graphic above © Ibn Bint Jbeil 2005
On his blog, Moussa Bashir highlights the disturbing issue of the widespread abuse inflicted on foreign domestic workers in Lebanese households. It is something to be ashamed of. Any family that invites a young woman into their home as a live-in domestic worker should treat her as a sister or a daughter; anything less is expressive of that family's illness, as well as a societal illness.
I want to say that I feel proud when a fellow lebanese such as Mr. Bashir stands up for what's right, even if that be contrary to the mainstream culture's expectations of what is prudent about a subject.
I truly believe that when belligerent Lebanese employers (and I do know that the problem also exists in other Arab countries) abuse their guest workers, whether it remains on the level of emotional abuse or reaches one level of physical abuse or another, that abusive employer is divulging their own weakness, self-hatred, identity confusion, racism, and a cycle of ceaseless societal abuse that is an integral aspect of the culture, and which must be abolished from our midst. GOD HELP US.
PLEASE READ MOUSSA BACHIR's Sept 13 & Sept 16 articles.
_
On the 25th Anniversary of the Sabra & Shatila Massacres by Izraeli & Phalangist thugs, we send prayers of peace and love, during this sacred month, to the innocent souls of our Palestinian brothers & sisters, may they reside in tranquility with their Creator, and my Allah connect between themselves and ourselves with goodwill and fraternity, and may He continuously frustrate the hands of their murderers.
After reading my Sept 2 post, painter-photographer Doris Bittar sent me a few thoughts, as well as the pictures below.
She told me about a trip to Narh el-Bared in 2002:
"We stayed overnight in the camp and then traveled with our friends to Syria. Our friend Jamal is from San Diego but his parents remain in the camp. His mother had the most lovely kitchen and a roof top with a garden, a space to dream while you looked out to the sea to the west and the high mountains to the east.
"I was interested in the rich personal spaces that people create for themselves in the camp, in this unpromising environment. Jamal's mother, like so many Palestinian women, made a special home for her family. I attached a portrait collage of her in her kitchen."
It still bothers me--but is quite indicative of something global--that my posts that have to do with sexism or gender discrimination generate no reactions or comments whatever. I can write "potato" in a post, and there would be some 20 comments.
I am hereby commenting because you included the word potato in your post.
and that is why every time we are asked if we are from bint jbeil,we are fast in denying that, potato head
as3ad,And I'll add a couple of words and ask this:
the commenting section of your blog is a forum for psychopaths to spew their hatred for each other, while they are all anonymous to each other. i cannot believe the extent of the hatred.
it's like experiencing an angry moment inside a psychiatric hospital ward where all the patients have gone ballistic and start to verbally assault each other, coming very close to throwing chairs at each other. the only difference is: everyone has a mask on their face; no one knows who anyone else really is.
i mean, i understand that the entire forum of blogging in general, to a large extent, is a forum for hate, and an opportunity for people to show their hate, but on your blog, your posts are in one world, and the comments section of your readership is in an entirely different world. and it's not just the expected hatred of pro-palestinians vs zionists, or religious vs secularist, or vegetarians vs carnivores; even someone from aynata feels compelled to offer hateful words to someone from bint jbeil, words that perhaps would not have been said in person.
what is with the amount of HATRED? what is fermenting in everyone's hearts??? where does the compelling need of one to tell others about one's hatred come from?? is it the anonymity of the internet?
