A Culture of Hate and Death

(This article will be published in the December issue of Living Well magazine in Jordan)

I’m going to be very frank. Self-delusion and fear of the truth had eventually cost us too many beautiful lives on that grim Wednesday night. But unless we face the distressing facts, we should expect more terrible surprises. My patient editor always advises me that readers of Living Well magazine generally don’t expect to read about religion or politics – and to her dismay, I have since found it almost impossible to write anything not related to either facets of our lives. I think this escapist Jordanian phenomenon is symptomatic of our dangerous head-in-the-sand attitude. Very few people are actually willing to acknowledge that religion and politics are, whether we like it or not, deeply intermingled in dominating every single breath we take in every second of our existence in this plagued part of the world. Even fewer are those ready to confront the lethal outcome of mixing the two by illiterate dropouts who believe they hold, and can bestow upon others, the keys to paradise. Until our 11/9, that is. Read More »

My Shirt

“In the airports we were born. We know the story,

but … we will not die in the harbors”

Samih Al Qasem

My dear diary, what if my father were to read this? And what if my mother were to read this as I disrobe letter by letter before their very eyes? Would they discover my secret or would they believe this to be fiction not related to reality in any way? I’m afraid it may sadden them to discover how lost I am, how afraid I am of my present, of my future, of a heritage I inherited not by choice, within an existence where I ask myself everyday: when will my life begin? Read More »