Caught between a war and a cold place

In two years a humble revolution has turned into a raging war whose parties’ have become unrecognisable through the smoke of bombs and poisonous chemicals. For two years the world has watched and played the blame game, for two years Syria has bled.

In two years the United Nations Refugee Agency reports that over two million Syrians have been forced to flee their country, their status changing from citizen to refugee. 

Syria is now a battleground for the egotistical and the power hungry, for the religious extremist and the hired hit man. The rest has turned into rubble.

Lying in a warm bed one cannot shake off the image of the Syrian child who tries to fall asleep as the freezing wind cuts through his frail body. How can one enjoy this cool air wafting across the scorching Middle East after it has murdered children in refugee camps? 

Tattered tents are their shields against the harshness of winter, which seems to grow more ruthless as the years go on. 

In 1948, during the Jewish exodus approximately 725,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces, they tied their house keys around their necks and fled for their lives with hopes that one day they shall return, they never did. The world remained silent.

Today, two million Syrians have been driven out of their homes by the very people vowing to protect them and the world’s silence is louder than ever.

As politicians weigh courses of action against their political agendas the death toll weighs heavy on the conscience of the world. The once vibrant Syrian streets are now haunted by the souls of the innocent and the historic monuments that told of an unrivalled Arab civilisation no longer stand tall.

As refugee camps face one of the harshest winters in the region’s recent history it becomes ever clearer that international aid is an immediate answer but it is not the final one. The war in Syria must end, the people of Syria must return to their homes and begin to rebuild. 

Governments must seek a peaceful solution, for Syria has seen enough bloodshed. We have seen both the Iraqi and Libyan experiments fail as hundreds of people are still dying there every year, we have just become desensitised to the numbers. Military intervention and the injection of weapons only add to the conflict by creating more fighting factions than one can count, each with its own agenda. 

Political compromises must be made so that enemies turn into allies in order to create more pressure on the Syrian government to act. 

Until then, Syrians will continue to choose life over death. They will brave the bitter cold for the whiteness surrounding them remains gentler than the redness the artists of death chose to cover their homes with. They will continue to survive in the hope that while their winters might get colder, our hearts will not.


This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 22 Dec., 2013 http://bit.ly/1cK7aM7

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1bYtML7

Broken hearts inspire minds

The creative mind is in constant search of emotion, forever on an insatiable quest to feel. If not for joy, a painter’s brush would never stroke a canvas. If not for love, musical halls would echo only silence and if not for heartache, one’s pen would never run dry. 

Of all the emotions a soul might experience it is the most painful that creativity craves. It is only when one hears his heart shattering into a thousand pieces that the urge to create seizes control. Loss, betrayal, a love that never was, all have at one point fuelled the talented, the gifted among us to create masterpieces some of which adorn the world’s museums today.  

Sylvia Plath penned her most memorable poetry, the words her entire fame rests on, only after hearing the shattering of her heart upon learning of her husband’s affair. She spoke of a burst of inspiration of which the source could only be the agonising pain of betrayal. 

The most famous of those who wallow in despair, the artist Edward Munch, painted many self-portraits but none reached the height of morbidity until he came to the realisation that he could never commit to the only woman he loved. From this suffering Self-portrait in Hell was birthed. A painting depicting Munch surrounded by flames, burning in an eternal fire of grief. 

The French author Stendhal was tormented by his unrequited love for a woman who treated him cruelly, for her he wrote his book De L’Amour (On Love) in an attempt to find logic in the illogical spirits of love. His lover’s ruthless rejection of his passion compelled him to dissect the anatomy of love. Having tired of looking for reason behind loving one who carelessly tramples over your heart, he finally wrote: “A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.”

The world is strewed with monuments to loss, grief and guilt. The Taj Mahal is a wonder of our world, yet is it a wonder because it is unfathomable for us to imagine a love so great as to outlast life? Or is it so because we wish to believe that it could? Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built this magnificent tomb in memory of his wife so that she might be remembered till eternity, this monument took sixteen years to construct. The world believes it was built by love but reading Shah Jahan’s own words on the Taj, one could say it was grief that built the Taj Mahal and it was sorrow that saw it through sixteen years till completion.

Shah Jahan’s own words describe the mausoleum:

“The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs; and the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.” 

People flock to witness this monument to love yet all that is truly there is the physical manifestation of love being overshadowed by sadness, for it is the feeling of loss that raised the walls of this world wonder.

We have reached the age of denial, we have become happiness seekers, afraid to feel. We are told to think positive, to seek only joy. Stores overflow with books selling you ways to rid yourself of ‘negative’ feelings. Assuming you could package and sell happiness and that indeed you can be taught to rid yourself of unwanted feelings, what happens to the process of creation?

What happens when we willingly diffuse the power of other emotions? It is unfair, one could even say naïve, of us to deem all emotions that do not leave us relaxed, negative. We must continue to build, paint and scribe, channelling the intensity of our pain and sorrow instead of allowing them to consume us.

Not intending to seem dark, but I am a firm believer that only when engulfed by darkness can we appreciate any source of light no matter how minute. I do wish you a lifetime of happiness but should the inevitable happen and sadness rears its head, I wish for you the strength to gather the scattered pieces of your shattered heart and a burst of creativity that shall bring you true fulfilment, who knows maybe even enrich our world.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 8 Dec., 2013 http://bit.ly/J1LO5H 
Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper  http://bit.ly/1borBg7 

UAE, always united, always ahead

Here is the United Arab Emirates today celebrating its 42nd year of unity. Continuing to prove to the world its founders’ vision, that a union does not only bring power, it reinforces harmony. 42 years later the UAE’s political experiment has become one to be emulated. The 2nd of December is not just a day celebrating the passing of time, for the people of UAE it is a celebration of monumental achievements taking place year after year. A young nation it may be, only by years, certainly not by accomplishments.

The UAE’s visionary founder, the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, foresaw a boundless future for this nation. He was a man of the people and a firm believer in the betterment of all nations. This we continue to witness today through charitable work the UAE has done all over the world since its inception.

History has proven that a true leader never dies if he secures a future for his nation through a coming generation who shall carry the torch further.

Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Ruler of the UAE, continues paving the path laid by our founders. Along with his brothers the Rulers of the Emirates they have formed a leadership entity that has empowered the people of UAE to seek new heights in whatever they choose to do, all the while reminding them that coming to the aid of nations in need is not only the government’s prerogative but that of the people as well.

The unity has flourished, propelled by inspiring leadership and bound stronger by the belief of the people in its effectiveness and importance. It has indeed created harmony because this union has extended its arms beyond its seven Emirates. The UAE today is not only home for the people of the Emirates but is also home to some 200 different nationalities. People from different countries and faiths have come to live in unison under the UAE’s skies. The UAE’s embrace of different cultures has made it the country it is today. This openness made way for the intermingling of ideas and the creation of a diverse society fuelling the UAE’s movement forward.

It is heartwarming to witness the residents of the UAE who hail from different countries across the globe celebrate its achievements, realising that they too are a part of them. 

Just a few days before the UAE’s National Day the people of UAE celebrated an unprecedented feat in the Middle East, Dubai winning the Expo 2020 hosting bid. UAE nationals were ecstatic and so were its residents, we saw images of hundreds of people waving the UAE flag high and congratulating themselves on the win. The coming together in support of the Dubai Expo 2020 bid has shown us the true harmony that the UAE leadership has spread across its land.

In 42 years the unique Emirati political model and its leadership’s humane qualities have set the UAE apart from nations around the world. It has turned the world’s eyes towards the Emirates and as the world watches on it will continue to move forward.

One has to believe that had the late Sheikh Zayed been among us today he would have been proud of what his nation has achieved and that his vision never faltered. For this humble writer, this belief is motivation enough to keep driving this nation forward, always united, always ahead.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 2nd Dec.,2013  http://bit.ly/19cKXoG

Arabic version of the article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1irttOZ 

                              

Celebrating the death of innocence

It used to be that for an issue to become the subject of worldwide debate it had to be investigated, fact-checked and exposed yet today all it takes is a video gone viral. This month, a video of 11-year-old Yemeni girl Nada Al-Ahdal made the rounds on social media sites and after hitting over 7 million views the story was picked up by the media and the doors of debate were flung open. 

This video showed young Nada eloquently telling the world that she has escaped the horrors of home seeking refuge at her uncle’s house because her mother intended to have her married. The passionate child addressed each and every one of us and asked, “What happens to a child’s innocence?” She expressed her wish to die rather than be sold to a man and feared for the lives of other young girls like her who have had their lives ruined. All of a sudden the child bride had a face and that in itself moved the world more than any statistic could.

The media pounced on the story based on its circulation and once again failed to do journalism’s basic requirement, that is, investigate. Turned out Nada’s video was staged by her uncle who works as a graphic technician in a TV station. Nada’s mother never intended on marrying her off and the girl never escaped from home. After the media vilified Nada’s parents in an attempt to save face the story was dismissed as a hoax and the world moved on and away from Nada. 

As this story fades away its remnants still linger on and one wonders, so what if this video is a sham and Nada was never to be a child bride? The facts remain that according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) a staggering 52% of girls in Yemen are married before the age of 18. Adding insult to injury in 1999 Yemen’s parliament abolished article 15 of its Personal Status Law which set the minimum age for marriage at 15. Simply put, Yemen has no minimum age for marriage. In a study conducted by Sanaa University it was revealed that in some areas in Yemen girls as young as eight are married off. 

Faced with these frightening figures does it really matter that Nada’s video was staged? Has the world missed the larger picture with regard to this story by dismissing it as a lie? Nada’s story might have been fiction but the crimes she spoke of are very much a reality. In 2008 the world was shell-shocked after hearing the story of 10-year-old Nujood Ali who approached a court in Sanaa asking the judge for a divorce. The words spoken by Nada, scripted or not, depict the lives of many young girls in Yemen who remain helpless because of the poverty compelling parents to sell their children to the highest bidder and the lack of laws which have aided these inhumane acts. 

Yemen is not alone when it comes to the normalisation of child marriages for the likes of these injustices are prominent in all countries suffering from endless political unrest and devastated by poverty. Countries like Niger, Afghanistan and Pakistan among many others rank highest in percentage of child marriages. This pandemic exists all over the world and must be combated. Cases of child marriages reveal many forms of physical abuse and violence, premature pregnancies and a high rate of infant mortality. The psychological effects on the young brides and the eternal feeling of isolation have led to many taking their own lives. 

It is predicted that 100 million young girls will be married in the next 10 years. Child protection laws must be enforced and greater efforts exerted in educating parents and providing a safe haven for children who have no choice but to escape the dismal future forced upon them. Adults should not be given the right to throw parties celebrating the death of their child’s innocence.

An 8-year-old girl should not be denied her childhood by living a life carrying out the duties of a wife. 13-year-old girls should not be raising children for they have yet to live their own childhood. These young girls represent our future and what a ghastly one it will be if we continue allowing these injustices to happen. 

Nada Al-Ahdal is not a child bride and we pray she never will be, but her question to the world still echoes in my mind and should do so in yours as well, when we allow for such crimes to occur she asks… “What happens to a child’s innocence?”

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 4 August, 2013. 

Arabic version published in Al Khaleej Newspaper http://bit.ly/1914uxN

                       

Mandela's Boat in Machiavelli's Ocean

The world suffers not wars, famine or injustice but the lack of courage and the sudden death of moral responsibility. We live in a self-involved world governed by greed and guarded by hypocrisy. A crumbling world destroyed by the very reason it was created. It is a world where mirages of courage are glimpsed every so often but alas they are nothing but the trick of a mind longing to quench its thirst. Yet among all the falsities at times we find truth. We hear it in one’s words and witness these words come to life through one’s actions. This is a rarity, an anomaly if you wish, which makes the Mother Teresas, the Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings and the Mandelas of the world names we will not soon forget. 

The world has lost many of those lone warriors and as I write these words I fear for one of the remaining few as he battles for his life. Nelson Mandela is a man who at a time when the world forced him to remain silent shouted at the top of his lungs, a man who fought oppression and won, a man who for the sake of freedom lived most of his life a prisoner. At 95 years of age many argue that there is not much left he can offer, but it is not what he has yet to give that is at stake, it is what he stands for. 

Today’s world cannot stand to lose the likes of Mandela for without them the future seems even grimmer. A few remain who can inspire us with absolute determination and endless devotion to their beliefs, and even fewer remain who will not falter at the pangs of pain or succumb to the lure of money. For no matter where your faith lies today’s world will find it and either beat it out of you, or buy it from you, it is as easy as that. 

Mandela lived on his land but adhered to a foreign man’s law, he grew up witnessing the marginalisation of his people and the abduction of what was rightfully theirs. On Mandela’s land the white man differentiated, segregated and oppressed on the basis of colour alone. Mandela believed that no man should be silent in the face of injustice yet also understood the grave consequences of such a belief. Undeterred by doubt and propelled by the hope of freedom he took on a journey that no ordinary man can undertake, he walked through the thorny path of freedom and came out the other side bloodied, bruised but free. 

The blood will wash away, the bruises will eventually fade yet the only thing that shall remain is a legacy of a man who unburdened his people, helped them take back their dignity when little was left of it and set them free.

Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1999, seems unfathomable for an African nation to get its first black president only 14 years ago but such is injustice, the greater its irrationality the stronger it becomes.

In 2001 Mandela visited Dar Al Khaleej Printing & Publishing in Sharjah and there he recalled his first visit to the United Arab Emirates in 1995. He explained his reluctance to visit a region of which he heard had no freedom, yet after visiting the UAE he told the attendees: “I found the complete opposite, I found a country that treats its people with greater respect than many ‘democratic’ nations in the West.” He pointed out that the great number of women in the audience shows just how progressive the UAE truly is.  

In a world devastated by wars and bled dry by greed people are lost in a sea of Machiavellian grey where only the end matters and nothing else. This dreary fact makes it all the more sad to see the Mandelas of the world perish with little hope of others of their kind surfacing from these murky grey waters. In his quest for his people’s freedom Mandela discovered his hunger for the freedom of all people, he believed that even his oppressor was not free for he too is shackled by the chains of prejudice and bigotry. He sought to free his people and in the process also unshackle his oppressor. The world only hopes that more people would seek justice knowing that it can never be achieved by allowing hate to cloud one’s vision. 

I leave you with Mandela’s words that have never left me: 

“I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”

We wish you well Madiba, may you continue to inspire and enlighten forever.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 21 July, 2013. 
An Arabic version of this article appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper on the same date http://bit.ly/158vLt3

Feminist before her time

We knew her as a mother of men, a mother to all but back when she was younger she was a girl who would not conform to what she believed was unfair, to what she saw as unjust. She was a girl who possessed the courage to put an end to what was in her eyes, even then, demeaning. It was a time when this country was nothing more than a gathering of tribes. She grew up in it not as we know it today, she lived in a UAE that was tight-knit, sheltered and unexposed. 

It was a time when child marriages were the norm, a place where a sign of a man's wealth was revealed by the number of wives he had, and women’s rights were those that were given to them by men. Even then, she stood tall, resisted an early marriage and refused to be treated like a possession. It was her choice to raise her two boys as a single mother, two boys who grew up to be men who played a pivotal role in shaping the country we know today. 

Everyone has heard of her two sons but not many have heard of the great woman behind these great men.

My grandmother was the first feminist I have ever known. She spoke of a woman's right and the preservation of her pride and dignity at a time when such ideas seemed taboo. She believed that a woman's education was her most prized possession and that her independence is a right not a luxury bestowed upon her. As a child I grew up listening to her stories of the harsh yet innocent times of her youth, of her struggles in raising her boys with the help of only her mother. I heard many times of her heartbreak at sending her boys off to Kuwait to get an education that she could never have. And about the many years she longed to see them at a time when communications were confined to letters that she could not read. 

She was a woman who loved life and the people in it. She recited poetry, loved music and had a sense of humour that remained with her to the very end. She was the woman who taught me that speaking one's mind and standing up for one's rights should be done gracefully and without disrespect for opposing views. She was a mother to all who knew her and to this day fondly call her "Mama Sheikha". 

I know that my words will never do her justice for she was the greatest part of my life. The void she left can never be filled no matter how many words I throw into it. She was my link to a life I never lived but, through her eyes, grew to love.

Loss is the absence of a part of you, you hold dear. In life, death is the absolute loss. We are taught that death is inevitable yet that never makes it any less cruel. Death is always sudden no matter how prepared you are for it. Death is always sudden, death is always cruel. 

My grandmother lost a son eleven years ago, his absence broke her spirit and she was never the same again. Eleven years later and only one week before her son's death anniversary she chose to leave us. And just like in life, in death she left gracefully and quietly. She was by my side since the day I came into this world and when she left it I was by hers.

She was my father's mother, she was my mother, she was and still is the strongest woman I have ever met. 

May she rest in eternal peace knowing that she will forever remain in our hearts.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 12 May, 2013. Arabic version was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/10P6vT3

  

One-way ticket to Mars

There was a time when people looked up at the sky in bewilderment, felt humbled by its vastness and intrigued by its unattainable wonders. It was the one place that allowed a human being the courtesy of a boundless imagination. But that was then, and this is now.

This month, a Dutch company named Mars One has made the dreamers of us an offer they cannot refuse. It is to send people on a one-way trip to Mars to start a human colony on the red planet. With no way for return, setting foot on this elusive planet means they are eternally on their own. Left to their own devices and vulnerable to whatever dangers lie ahead, they are to fend for themselves. So who would be brave enough or mad enough to take this trip of no return you may ask?

According to Mars One there have been 10,000 applicants so far. Ten thousand people found this idea alluring enough to venture into a place of no return. Fearlessly accepting to take this one-way journey, leaving behind everything and everyone they have ever known and bidding farewell to their mother, Earth. They are expected to fly, four at a time, living on limited supplies of canned food and to drink water made of their recycled urine. Even if there was an atom of a chance that these people could return, Mars One explains that once their bodies have adjusted to the mere 38% gravity level on Mars they would be physically incapable to tolerate Earth's much stronger gravity.

According to Mars One, this project is to be financed through media sponsorship. The company aims to create a reality-TV show around this mission, transmitting the daily lives of these Martian converts who have willingly left us behind to live the rest of their lives on a planet far, far away. These real-life Jetsons will instantaneously become the celebrities no one on Earth could ever get to meet. The fact that this endeavour is to be a media spectacle somehow diminishes its integrity and gives off a dark aura of blatant exploitation of cosmic proportions.

Bizarre as I might think this journey is, the more I ponder it the more logic I see.

We have succeeded in destroying earth, infecting it with disease, abusing its resources and are now counting down to its slow but sure demise. The idea of being able to escape all the devastation we have created and start anew could be compelling enough to propel people into the darkness of the virgin skies in a tiny pod fuelled by their sheer hope and naïve optimism. 

Yet to think that this expedition is a mere escape would be looking at the subject from a one-dimensional perspective. The egotistical compound of the human psyche shines another light on this endeavour, man as conqueror of Earth is not enough, man must conquer the heavens as well.  Our narcissistic nature keeps us forever ready to plant a flag on foreign territory, our pens anxious to draw boundaries sectioning any place we choose to inhabit. After all, this might not be about the journey but about the spoils.

For the romantics of us, this journey could be about man the explorer, man the adventurous. It could be the culmination of the ultimate dream that started as a sketch in Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. It could restore our faith in human determination and achievements after we have come to believe that all man can achieve is death and destruction.

Whatever the reasons for the journey may be and setting aside the physical and psychological damage that can occur, if these Martian pioneers were to actually carry out this mission successfully, would they do it differently? Would they learn from their earthly mistakes and strive to build something better?

Will they be able to set aside religious disparities, will they erase racism, eradicate hatred, and will they shed the ruthless skin of greed? Or will the weaknesses of mankind prevail and they would end up starting a journey similar to the one we have taken? A journey that ends in a bruised and battered world.

I wonder if these 'chosen ones' have thought about the responsibility they shoulder, I wonder if they even care.

This title was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 28 April, 2013. Arabic version published in Al Khaleej Newspaper http://bit.ly/188wGbY