Author: mara.ahmed

Dangerous game

Gita Sahgal has contributed to the current climate of intolerance and islamophobia in Britain, where the families of Muslim women like those I mentioned at the start, are having their hopes and dreams of a normal life in Britain dashed. Intolerance and confrontation with Muslims is on the rise all over Europe. Parliaments in France, Belgium and Spain are currently trying to pass laws against wearing the full veil in public, and a French MP justifies it by talking of combating “the French Taliban in our midst.” Violent incidents are recorded in Britain’s local papers every week. Human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy QC said on a platform recently, that we should be concerned that hostile and vicious expressions towards Islam have become shockingly respectable in our society – as racism and anti-Semitism once were. Full article.

Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water

A new report released by Amnesty International sheds light on the “discriminatory policies” that Israel imposes on the Palestinian population of both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel uses more than 80% of water from the main underground source, while restricting Palestinian access to 20%. Amnesty International calls on Israel to end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.

West Bank poverty ‘worse than Gaza’

Children living in the poorest parts of the West Bank face significantly worse conditions than their counterparts in Gaza, a study conducted by an international youth charity has found. The report by Save the Children UK says that families forced from their homes in the West Bank are suffering the effects of grinding poverty, often lacking food, medicine and humanitarian assistance. Full article.

Leader Of Death Squads Wins Colombian Election

The fact that the mass-media have so enthusiastically embraced a regime with the worst human rights record since the fall of the military dictators of the 1970s – 1980s is indicative of the right turn under the Obama Wall Street regime. According to the White House and media, deathsquad democracies like Colombia now qualify as “role models” for Latin America . The problem is that neither the vast majority of Latin America citizens, nor most of the democratic parties in the region are buying: they prefer democracies without deathsquads, foreign military bases and narco-dealing Presidents. At present, the White House’s three leading allies in the region, Colombia , Peru and Mexico produce and sell 80% of the cocaine in the region. Will this appear in the media’s salutations to newly elected presidents? Full article.

Eyes on Pakistan

while i don’t agree with some of AI’s analysis, human rights violations r rife in northwestern pakistan. the situation has devolved into a horrific humanitarian crisis. “In April 2009, the Pakistani army launched a major offensive in Malakand Division (NWFP) against the Pakistani Taliban, resulting in the displacement of over 2 million people, the largest displacement crisis in Pakistan’s history. This new wave of displaced joined the already 500,000 displaced people by the conflict in the FATA agencies. Nearly 90 percent of the people who fled the region had no access to organized camps and lived instead in extremely overcrowded conditions in host communities, existing slums and abandoned buildings. In many cases, three or four families were forced to share one residence, greatly straining host communities’ ability to provide sufficient food and clean water.” more here.

from “imaginary concerts” by alex ross

from “imaginary concerts” by alex ross, the new yorker, aug 24, 2009

forget the madeleine: the most potent sensual jolt in the first book of marcel proust’s “in search of lost time” is felt when charles swann falls under the spell of “a little phrase” in a violin sonata by a provincial composer named vinteuil. it is a theme of five notes – “secret, murmuring, detached… airy and perfumed.” the first time swann hears it at a party, he fails to catch the composer’s name, but the melody haunts him. a year later, he encounters the sonata again and is entranced. the experience coincides with swann’s sudden love for the courtesan odette, yet the import of the music goes beyond matters of the heart: the refined parisian aesthete discovers a country within, a new way for his spirit to walk. proust writes, “after a high note sustained through two whole bars, swann sensed its approach, stealing forth from beneath that long-drawn sonority, stretched like a curtain of sound to veil the mystery of its incubation.” swann emerges a changed man, his mind absorbing “one of those invisible realities in which he had ceased to believe,” to which “he was conscious once again of the desire and almost the strength to consecrate his life.”

proust captures the imaginary dimension of musical experience – the ability of the mind to conjure inner worlds under the influence of charged sounds. when we listen deeply, we aren’t simply registering music’s ebb and flow, we are remaking music in our own image, investing minor details with private significance. we may even develop a bond with music that we don’t hear clearly, that we heard once long ago, or that we never heard at all.

writers have long celebrated music’s properties of transcendence and ambiguity. they envy its seeming ability to break free of the material world, even as it remains passionately linked to daily life. “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music,” walter pater wrote. schopenhauer called music “the most powerful of all the arts,” the one that directly embodies the human will.

To be a Sufi…

To be a Sufi, forget the past, put it all away
Turn a brand new page, rescue your being from yesterday
Become a child of the present age, of youth, of wisdom
Never leave this bountiful moment, this eternal day.

~ Maulana Rumi