Amman In Winter

February 28, 2008 – 5:18 pm

A wintry Amman is casually lovely. The summer is great for tourism, but the winter invites introspection and quiet contentment. This is the time to warm your fingers by candlelight in a lounge like Canvas, or walk hypnotized through City Mall’s minimalist sleekness, or else just gape at the construction projects that are bristling up all over the city.

In the cold, Amman is a quieter place. Sound carries. Sunlight is milky and diluted. The nights are more energetic, now that new bars and restaurants are welcoming residents and travelers into their cavernous, smoky insides. For myself, I have now discovered Loki, the place that everyone started talking about a long time ago. As an infrequent traveler, I hope I can be forgiven for my lateness and general un-hipness.

The joke goes that Jordan is stuck “between Iraq and a hard place.” And yet for a nation literally bordered by conflicts, Jordan has done fairly well for itself, all things considered. It remains a favourite with tourists who are particularly keen on history and nature (although international brand-name luxury certainly has its presence in Amman, the Dead Sea, and beyond). The economy has been growing, and the currency is pretty strong.

The Islamic Action Front, a conservative political party, has suffered losses in Jordan’s most recent parliamentary elections. This may have something to do that the economy appears to be a top priority to the electorate, but personally, I’m not sure either way. Jordanian society as a whole is still pretty conservative, but Amman in particular has mellowed out some. I used to feel my foreignness keenly in Amman. Perhaps I’ve mellowed out as well.

In many public places, hotels especially, metal detectors are a reminder of the bombings of November 2005. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in jordan, society, travel | Comments (8)

Motorcycle Diaries Part XII

February 27, 2008 – 10:08 am

This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine

Being a lawyer, I’ve always pictured the ultimate courtroom drama to be destined to take place on judgment day. In fact, any day that shares its title with the name earthly courts give to their final verdicts pretty much deserves this legal honor.

Amongst the colorful array of evidence that would be presented by the prosecution to demonstrate mankind’s obsessive tendency to misbehave over the ages, my personal guess is that “exhibit A” is going to be the medium Al Gore (who would be biting his toenails with regret) claimed he invented. Yes, my friends, the people behind the internet are going to be the star prosecution witnesses in this mother of all trials before we get the barbecue that we truly deserve.

Before you jump to conclusions, I can tell you that my prediction has nothing to do with the fact that over 95% of the entire content of the internet is dedicated to the graphic display of the sin of fornication, although this would be sufficient reason to discredit this medium in any courtroom. To condemn us just for that would be too petty, I think.

I am talking here about a totally different sin altogether, one that has also been abbreviated into another four letter dirty word: SPAM.

Ok, maybe you’re right and I cannot claim to have a clue about how judgment day would look like, if I can even assume with such confidence that one would ever take place. But I do have my reasons for this theory. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in entertainment, science & technology | Comments (0)

Love in a Time of Video Games

February 24, 2008 – 11:48 am

My wife is cheating on me with our Playstation.

Fine, I exaggerate. However, sometimes I wonder if she is more emotionally committed to the latest installment of “Grand Theft Auto” than to me. Of course, I was the one who irritated her with my obsessive devotion to “Final Fantasy.”

Revenge is sweet.

I would like to see some type of statistical study on the kind of damage that video games can do to a marriage. Forget setting up romantic dinners or remembering her second cousin’s wife’s birthday: the real challenge to many committed couples today is making sure you don’t kill each other while arguing about whether or not “Assassin’s Creed” lived up to its hype (I say yes, she says no).

It chokes me, but I have to admit that my wife is a better gamer. To be perfectly honest, she even has a better relationship with my parents than I, their son, do (”why can’t you be more like Dina*, son?” - a question I hear almost as often as the “when are you going to give us grandchildren?” inquiry). Maybe, she is better at living.

Does my wife have to make a mockery of my high scores? My knowledge of elaborate cheats? My commitment to the art of gaming?

The answer, I am discovering, is affirmative.

I have no one to blame. I created this situation. Once, I made a horrible blunder. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in entertainment, humor, science & technology, video games | Comments (1)

Gaza’s Troubles Spill Over: An Overview

February 20, 2008 – 11:55 am

On January 30 of this year, thousands of Palestinians dashed into Egypt for a shopping onslaught only previously seen at the annual wedding gown sales in Filene’s Basement, a Boston department store (75% off). Hamas gunmen and desperate family providers destroyed part of the Israeli-built barrier along the Gaza-Egyptian border.

During the last three weeks before the onslaught, after an upsurge in rocket attacks coming from the Gaza Strip, Israel had imposed a tight blockade, refusing to allow anything but some humanitarian aid to trickle into the region, and not much of that. Two weeks later, the Israelis opened the doors to allow heating oil only. That same day, three more rockets were fired off at Israel from the Strip.

The Gaza Strip is roughly 25 miles long by 8 miles wide. Except for a seven mile southern border with Egypt, it is surrounded by Israel to the north and east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The area has been occupied almost continuously since the time of ancient Egyptians, with Philistines, Arabs, Christian Crusaders, the Ottomans, the British and the Israelis as overseers. It was even occupied by modern Egypt in the aftermath of the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Israel took control during the 1967 Six-Day War, along with the Golan Heights, the West Bank of the Jordan River, east Jerusalem and the Sinai Peninsula.

Israel withdrew its physical occupation from parts of the Strip in accordance with the 1979 Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords also affirmed the Palestinian right to self-government. The Palestinian National Authority and Israel then shared control in the Gaza Strip until 2005, when Ariel Sharon unilaterally ended Israeli’s military presence and withdrew all Israeli settlements, making the Strip the first territory to come completely under the PNA. The peace, however, did not to last.

Yasir Arafat’s PLO had become cynically corrupt, tired, and had generally lost its way. As we know, in 2007, Hamas, a militant group and determined foe of Israel, was voted in by the Palestinians to replace the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, causing a schism with the Fatah party, the PLO’s political wing, which dominates Palestinians in the West Bank.

Since the reluctant withdrawal of the Israeli settlements in 2005, Gaza is almost entirely Palestinian Arab. At least 99 percent of the population are Sunni Muslim with a scattered few Christians. The region saw a massive shift of population following the conflict of 1948, when Israel was created. By 1968, the region had grown in population six times. Right now 1.5 million people live in the Gaza Strip and it has, at 146 square miles, one of the highest population densities in the world. Eighty percent of Gazans live below the U.N.’s poverty level.

Israel and Egypt signed a treaty in 1979 that returned control of the Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Strip, to the Egyptians. As part of that treaty, a 100 meter wide band of land was designated as the Philadelphi corridor was set up as a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt. Israel subsequently built a corrugated sheet metal barrier there during the intifadas of the early 2000s. The barrier is topped by barbed wire.

Egypt and Israel then enacted a military accord in 2005 after the Israeli military pullout. This agreement was ostensibly built on the 1979 peace pact. This pact specified a deployment of 750 Egyptian border guards along the length of the border, which is, remember, seven miles long. These guards were to man the border helping Israel defend against terrorism, arms smuggling and other illegal behavior. That was the deal.

The Rafah Crossing, the only entry-exit point along those seven miles had been controlled by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. The E.U. was to monitor any Palestinian impulses to misbehave on their side of the wall. However, in July 2007, the E.U. pulled out after Hamas defeated Fatah in their elections for the right to speak for the Gazans. At the time of the pullout, Egypt and Israel agreed to shut down the Rafah Crossing, effectively sealing Gaza off from the rest of the world. The Israelis hoped that such a blockade would choke off Hamas-directed mortar and rocket attacks into southern Israel. It did not stop those attacks, but it did stop anything (i.e. heating oil, baby diapers, blankets, coffee and so on) from getting in. It was winter, and it was bitterly cold (Western observes, of course, regularly assume that the entirety of the Middle East is hot year-round). Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, palestine | Comments (1)

Russia, My Russia: Part V

February 17, 2008 – 9:08 am

The previous installment of Husam’s travelogue can be found here.

Like most people, I have heard a lot about the Hermitage, but never in my wildest dreams expected it to be as stupendous as it turned out to be. Everyone knows the Hermitage is grand, not everyone realizes what “grand” truly means.

The museum is located on the waterfront, surrounded by statues. Behind it is a vast open square in the middle of which is the largest podium made of a single piece of granite in the world. The palace itself was built to host the collections of art and sculpture and curiosities that the Russian Empire both produced and collected, beginning at the time of Catherine the Great.

Nothing was spared as successive Russian monarchs tried their best to benefit their country by sending agents to gather and assemble precious collections of art, as well as commission Russian and international artists and architects to design and build. The mere size of the St. Petersburg museum made me realize that at least several other world museums can easily fit inside this gargantuan wonderland.

Once you enter the maze of the Hermitage, even a compass or the latest GPS system, even a laser-guided tour, will not save you from getting lost in its vastness. Your mind will wander in its labyrinth and your heart will jump in every new room you encounter. It is simply endless.

The Hermitage boasts huge exhibits centered Romans, Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian civilizations, rooms that not many people know about. Add to that precious collections of paintings from every epoch and every school of art. Add carvings, sculptures, artifacts, tapestries, and so on. This is beside the fact that the presentation itself is just as priceless:

Each new hall and gallery has a different theme. The floors vary from marble mosaics to wooden parquet of every conceivable color and design, created with loving care, like a painting that you can walk on. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in russia, society, travel | Comments (2)

I Hate Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2008 – 6:31 am

Not because of religion, or politics, do I despise February 14th. Neither am I one of those people who hates it simply because he has no one to celebrate it with (though I sincerely sympathize with everyone who hates it for precisely that reason).

My profound problems with this so-called holiday run deeper than that.

Consider, for instance, the candy:

Too sweet, too artificial, inevitably heart-shaped, and always stuffed in a ridiculous box that no grown man (or woman) should be seen carrying in public. Indulge in a few of these, and you can actually feel your teeth rotting in your head for the rest of the day. No amount of toothpaste can quite erase the sticky film on the enamel. Drinking ten soft-drinks in a row is probably much, much healthier.

Then, of course, there is the rest of the merchandise: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in humor, romance, society | Comments (5)

Rasha Mahdi: Egyptian Caricaturist

February 10, 2008 – 8:41 am

Rasha Mahdi has been described as the first female Egyptian caricaturist.

In her bio, Ms. Mahdi lists her mother as her source of support in pursuing her goals. She also lists her background in graphic design and advertising. She has done freelance work for a variety of Egyptian publications, so, if you’re in Egypt, she might already be familiar.

Mahdi looks like she is no friend of the George W. Bush administration, though she takes on other subjects just as freely (Osama Bin Laden, Brad Pitt, and Tony Blair among them - personally, I’m a big fan of the Brad Pitt caricature; considering the fact that this man’s perfectly chiseled face has been staring at me from every newsstand). Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in arts and literature, egypt, humor, muslim women | Comments (2)

The Rape and What Came After

February 6, 2008 – 4:25 pm

My cousin did not leave a suicide note. They spoke of it as if it had been an accident. She had accidentally taken half a bottle of pills. Every family has secrets, you see.

And I should have known.

Her husband never struck her, and never smiled at her. She was grateful to him. He re-married quickly.

I should have known.

Her old classmate came to me years later, in a different city, where the air thankfully did not smell of her hair. Did I want to have a cup of coffee? Did I want to know the truth about my cousin? “My cousin had an accident.”

She had so many. Starting at age twelve.

I should have known. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, muslim women, parenting | Comments (4)

And Then the Internet Died

February 3, 2008 – 6:16 am

Technology is great. Until it betrays you like a character from a sinister Shakespeare play.

A few days ago, walls were punched in frustration and hair was being pulled out all across the Middle East. The Internet had simply failed. Sites were either not loading at all, or else loading at the approximate speed of the dreadful dial-up era. Entire businesses were said to have stopped functioning.

I don’t know about you, but I felt as though I had been transported back into a primitive Dark Age. I opened the curtains half-expecting to see a street full of carts pulled along by donkeys.

Things are better now; for me and my ISP, at the very least. I am no longer pulling out my hair. But my fingers are still twitching from the initial shock. Any momentary lapse in my browser’s functions has me wanting to crawl under my desk, whimpering in horror at the thought that “ohnoohnoohno, it is about to start again.”

So, what happened? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, humor, science & technology | Comments (0)