كل شيء ممنوع مرغوب

Well, CASA's new administration at Harvard finally made a decision and we will not be transferred to Cairo at any point during the program. No more information was given to us, but if we decide to go to Cairo on our own, we will need to sever all ties with CASA. I cannot say I am devastated by this decision. A full year in Amman sounds fine to me and much easier than a year in Cairo, but I am still missing out on a valuable part of the CASA experience, and Arabic-study experience in general, by not having the opportunity to study in Egypt, especially at AUC. But, I am just starting to become comfortable with the Jordanian dialect and it would have been frustrating to start all over again in Cairo, not only in terms of language but also all the day-to-day things that we take for granted-- an automatic understanding of the currency and reasonable prices, the layout of the city, knowing what restaurants most likely will not give you food poisoning, etc. Now that I know for sure that I will be studying in Amman for the year I feel like I will be more open to making real friends here and fully embracing a dialect-- something that I have been needing to do for a long time now. 

The program has been getting increasingly difficult and I have not been finding or making the time for many big adventures. But, I did visit a very interesting looking mosque in Ashrafiyya this weekend, Abu Darweesh Mosque:

And some Bashar Al-Assad graffiti I saw walking around Ashrafiyya (not sure what's in his mouth):

Beirut, part two

We caught a minibus from the airport bridge in Beirut to Baalbek. The bus was packed for the first part of the trip and altogether the drive took about two and a half hours. After only ten minutes in the bus, still in Beirut, we came to our first checkpoint. Passports were checked and we were waved along. This is about the time we saw an increase in the amount of pro-Assad posters, all saying things like "We are with you always" accompanied by the most flattering pictures of Assad they could find. The same area was strewn with the Amal Movement's flags and beyond that were some banners for the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon. We were traveling east into the mountains but everywhere along our route was populated, either by small towns or a series of shops--everything from paintball ranges and german shepherd training centers to Starbucks and gun stores. 

Altogether we crossed about five checkpoints before reaching Baalbek. The last third of our trip was in Hezbollah territory and the checkpoints appeared increasingly makeshift. By the time we passed through the last one, there were only two other passengers on the bus. One a professorial man of about sixty sitting directly behind me and a slightly younger man at the back of the bus, wearing a beanie and baggy clothes, looking a little haggard. At our final checkpoint we were stopped by four men. The only indication that they were official was a black 'national security' vest and the AK-47s and MP5s that they nonchalantly waved around with their fingers on the trigger, reminiscent of young IDF soldiers. Other than that, they wore sneakers and jeans and short sleeves. We slid the van door open and they asked for our passports. Upon confirming that we were Americans, we got a warm welcome and they moved on to the other two passengers who faced a more thorough interrogation. The worst of it fell on the down-and-out man in the beanie. Standing at the door of the van, the guards were asking him for his ID and to explain the reason for travel. A relative of his was sick and he was going to help care for him. They weren't satisfied with his answer and took him farther from the van for a pat down and more questioning. It was too far for me to hear, and I was desperate to know what it was about him that made them so suspicious. Clearly, it was something specific about his appearance that I could never detect. We all waited in the van, the driver being surprisingly patient. The guards took off the man's shoes and emptied his pockets. They then told the driver to go. He was hesitant. They told him again and he said the man hadn't paid his fare. The newly-detained man walked calmly over to the van and gave the driver all the money he seemed to have on him, just short of the fare. We left without him and he returned to the interrogation. I turned to the passenger behind me and asked why they chose him for inspection. "I don't know." Yeah, right. 

These guards have good reason to be vigilant. About a week before we arrived, a suicide bomber killed one and injured 32 at one of the checkpoints on this route. 

As soon as we left the checkpoint our surroundings were dominated by Hezbollah imagery-- flags, banners, pictures. Along the median were massive cardboard celebrity cutouts of the Ayatollah and Nasrallah's picture plastered everywhere. Posted on every telephone pole was one of the 99 different names for God--The Forgiving…The Seer of All…The Expediter…The Delayer. The Shi'a mosques, especially the Khawla Mosque next to the Baalbek ruins, were striking. More flashy than the Sunni mosques I am used to, they are strewn with small, colorful flags and have pictures of various religious figures.

Finally, here are the ruins themselves:

This area was settled about 9,000 years ago, but the Roman ruins that we see today are mostly from 150 A.D.

This is the Temple of Bacchus. Once a Roman temple, and one of the largest remaining in the world, it was later converted into a church, then a mosque, and is now used for concerts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxru3jNV63s

Here is a sculpture of Cleopatra and the deadly snake on her chest, and next to her is the less well-preserved Mark Antony. Both of their sculptures fell from the temple in 1759 after a devastating earthquake. 

Here is the underside of the arch leading into the Temple of Bacchus, with engravings of the god and his beloved grapes:

We were lucky to run into a guide while wandering around the temple since he pointed out a lot of details that we never would have noticed. The engravings on the outer walls of the temple are full of symbolic imagery, both for good years (fruits, dancing women, symbols of friendship) and bad years (locusts eating the crops and birds drinking all the water that is left after a drought). The underside of these pillars has faces carved into them. The guide said that all of these faces were the images of wealthy locals who donated money to build and restore the temple.

Back in Beirut for our last day we wandered around the Corniche more and the intense heat and humidity made us jealous of the guys who were snorkeling and setting up fishing nets. Unfortunately, a lot the the areas around the Corniche are not conducive to swimming, especially not for women.

And finally, here is another piece that I came across by Yazan, defaced by religious fanatics who do not believe that humans should be depicted. It was a portrait of Mahmoud Darwish.

Beirut, part one

Finally getting around to writing my posts about Beirut. Things have been moving so fast here and so much has happened in the last few weeks. But, before I start in on my weekend in Beirut, here's a picture of my awesome language partner Muhammad (on the right) and his equally amazing friend Mahmoud. Our weekly three hour meetings have consisted of smoking shisha, watching the world cup, exploring the Jordanian University's campus and library, breaking fast with the staple Jordanian dish mansif, and having some fun but frustrating arguments about religion and homosexuality.  

So we arrived in Beirut around midnight Wednesday night. The humidity was stifling, but we wandered around the Mar Michael neighborhood for a few hours, passing the blue-domed Muhammad Al-Amin mosque which is located across from a Ferrari dealership which isn't far from buildings that look like this:

Parts of Beirut are still damaged from the civil war and the Israeli bombings in 2006. Just when you are being enveloped by the high-end condos and stylish cafes, you encounter buildings like this and they are, to me, a chilling reminder of everything that this city has endured and may continue to endure. It was amazing where I would find these reminders. Wandering around the beautiful National Museum, I was looking at a 5th century mosaic of animals when I noticed the hole about a foot in diameter. I commented, only half seriously, that it was probably remnants from the civil war. Turns out it was. From a sniper who shot through the window, gouging a hole in a 1500 year old mosaic and the wall that displayed it. This kind of contrast marked the few days in Lebanon. 

More pictures of the museum:

The majority of my time in Beirut was spent wandering around the Hamra district, near the American University in Beirut and along the Corniche, on the Mediterranean. The best part about walking around was seeing all of the graffiti. I was familiar with some of the pieces from an assignment I had done on graffiti in the Arab world, so it was nice to see them in person. 

My first full day in Beirut I visited T-Marbouta, a lovely cafe and library in Hamra owned by my former professor's brother. The food was delicious, especially the mutabbal.

Practically all of the food we ate in Beirut was amazing. The first night we ate at Le Chef, which was a simple, homestyle Lebanese restaurant. It was my first time eating molokhia and now I want to cook it myself. We also went to an Argentinian rooftop steak house. Again, delicious. A large amount of our time in Beirut was spent doing homework so we hung out at a few cafes, drinking lavender lattes and writing our weekly Arabic papers.

By far the best part of the trip to Lebanon was the day trip we took to Baalbek. I'll include all the pictures of that in part two.

I was beyond disappointed in class today when my professor mentioned the three ‘settlers’ who ‘died,’ referring to the three kidnapped teens in the West Bank. I’ve noticed that this language is common among those supporting Palestine. I missed the memo about using the term ‘settlers’ rather than ‘teenagers’ or ‘students’ when referring to the three young men who didn’t ‘die,’ but were murdered in the Occupied West Bank. This language strikes me as an attempt at implying, subconsciously, that they deserved it. Like when we use the term ‘terrorist’ to refer to anyone affiliated with Hamas. Just as I hate when murdered Palestinian children are referred to as ‘collateral damage’ or ‘an isolated incident,’ I would hate to see those supporting the Palestinian cause using the same disdainful and manipulative tactics that are so common to many right-wing Israelis and Zionists.

In the past few weeks these teenagers were murdered along with Mohammed Khdair and many Palestinian children before him. None of them deserved it and their parents are all suffering. 

I experienced the same shock, or I should say extreme disappointment, in a Beirut bookstore. Next to Arabic translations of Marquez, Coelho, and copies of Eat, Pray, Love, there was a book that caught my eye. It’s title: How Did the Jews Fabricate the Holocaust?! Books with titles like this are not at all rare. Streetside booksellers have copies of Mein Kampf and a Jordanian Hallmark-style store sells The Protocols of Zion at the front desk. What made my heart sink was the author’s name--Norman Finkelstein. It was then obvious that the title was an egregious mistranslation of Finkelstein’s most well-known book: The Holocaust Industry, which does not by any means claim that the Holocaust was fabricated (his own parents were survivors), but states that the memory of the Holocaust is being monopolized and exploited by those who want to justify the stealing and occupation of Palestinian land in the name of Israeli security.

In addition to the overt anti-Semitism present in this literature, it bothers me that those who are ‘anti-Israel’/‘pro-Palestine’ feel the need to manipulate the narrative and language to get their point across. We don’t have to use loaded terms to illustrate how horrible the Israeli government and military treats Palestinians. We don’t have to regress to this disgusting anti-Semitism to stand up against the crimes committed every day in the West Bank and Gaza. If we want to show who has it worse off we can just look to the facts and history of the conflict, no spin needed.