Child Abuse ( Watch If You Can )

These are the ones I could watch..and post. It's just so painful and what hurts most is that the children have gone through this horror. 


Don't think that it only happen to "them" and not "us"..it's everywhere. 

Hostility

I wrote this in 2010-09-06 but never post it. Now I feel like it's the time for it. 

First of all, let me say that this topic is not directed to anyone in particular . It was a mere response to some posts i have been reading lately and talked about it before in my blog. 

Why the hostility? 

Why the prejudice? 

Why not trying to understand ?

Why not trying to respect and cherish ?

I am from one of the most ............... areas in the world 

( fill in the blank , but let me give you some choices, can i ? - sophisticated, beautiful, dangerous, poor,rich, stupid, colorful .....etc - you can add yours if you wish ) 

I used to have many pen-pals from all over the world at the university, before being able to have friends online in these days- and we used to discuss and talk about lots of topics. 

Some would be surprised to know that i am from Saudi Arabia, a strange land to them. some knew a lot about it while others don't even know where it is located . One of them was from China, she was so sweet, when we talked about politics and what the media said about China, she would simply say that people and media have to see things from the point of view of the Chinese people, to be in their shoes. 

I never forgot her words .

Being a huge reader of everything, I can say that in the eye of the media we are all awful people. 

when i say "we" i mean the whole world. 

Right now, it's Muslims and Arabs. Some of it because it was our faults and some aren't. And our faults means the faults of SOME not ALL. 

some Muslims kill themselves and terrorize others in the name of Islam and colonialism. 

But did the media -west ,east, north or south- done any good about it? . It's easier to simply say ALL Arabs and ALL Muslims agree with that. 

Did the media try to show the good ones, the ones who refused that and they are by the millions btw ?

No, why? because simply .Good News are not News .

When America with the help of Britain attack Iraq did the media shows us that thousands of people protested against that war ? Our media ? Rarely. 

Does our media shows how is tony Blair being attack everywhere he goes to prompt his book and keep calling him a war criminal ? 

even hate speech are ok with me, they have to hate as much as they like and i don't have to listen but i can not and shall not stop them in anyname. when these speeches turn into action then yes legal steps must be taken. And we can explain ourselves.

But are there anything we can not discuss on blogs .

This says that there are ten things shouldn't be discusses online which are :

1-the middleeast

2-homosexuality

3-jesus christ

4-race relations

5-abortion

6-gun control

7-the holocoust

8-politics

9-origins of man

10-religion

They are mainly talking about the United States, 

what about the middleeast?

the Arabic and Islamic countries?

Saudi arabia ?

why are we so sensitive to critizisem?

why do we have to assume that everyone lives a happy life ?

why do we all have to see life in the eye of only a specific group ?

what about others?

do miniority have any legal rights to speak?

Update: 24/11/2011

it's so disgusting with all the hostility going on towards the Shi'ite in my country. 

A Thought For Everyday

Source

Somalia: Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

By: photographer Jared P. Moossy

Source 

The Lucifer Effect

This is part three of a series that has started in my head after the death of Qaddafi, which evoked something I have been thinking about a lot and a book came to the rescue. Part one is The Death Of Qaddafi  and two is Who Do We Hate ? And Why ?


How do you judge people? Don't pretend that you don't judge, we all do. So how do you judge them ? based on what ? most of us do so based on their actions, if they do good things then they are good and if they hurt others then they aren't and we would gladly call them "evil". We do it daily with dictators who kill their people, with rapists, killers, even normal people like you and you and you, cuz I wont judge me !!!.
But do you judge those who stop the evildoers like those who killed Qaddafi too ??


what do we know about the human nature?. How do people turn to good or bad ? How do they react in a good or bad way in the face of tragedies or with evildoers? 


The book that came to help, and believe me books can help you a lot in different parts of your life, is called "The Lucifer Effect, understanding How Good People Turn Evil" by Philip Zimbardo. If you ever heard his name then you would know that he is the one who staged " The Stanford Prison Experiment" . The book is trying to answer questions like "what makes good people do bad things" "how and why we are all susceptible to the lure of "the dark side" ..etc.? .


In the very first pages of the book, Zimbardo explains:
"The Lucifer Effect is my attempt to understand the processes of transformation at work when food or ordinary people do bad or evil things. We will deal with the fundamental question "what makes people go wrong?" but instead of resorting to a traditional religious dualism of good versus evil, of wholesome nature versus corruption nurture, we will look at real people engaged in life's daily tasks, enmeshed in doing their jobs, surviviing within an often turbulent crucible of human nature" and believe me the book has done so and much more. 

Its a big book of 550 pages and a big part of it is a detailed description of his Stanford Prison Experiment. you can read how normal people who were supposed to be prisoners and guards for only two weeks turned in the short time of one and two days to something evil and submissive. It explains a lot about what happens in our world and how do some can control others and how the rest can obey completely. Things we keep saying daily that we wont submit to, we wont let anyone treat us this way or that. I loved the part of the book that explains about "Crimes Against Humanity: Genocide, Rape, And Terror". Leave you wondering and in pain. 


What I love mostly is that unlike lots of psychologists, he doesn't judge, he simply explain to you the why's, the what's and the how's of our human nature. 


 The scariest thing  is that anyone of us can flip at any second if we don't be aware, awake, teach ourselves that we are all the same no matter what religion, race, country or gender we belong to. These things will help us realize that we can be on the good track. Cuz as much as it's scary to harm yourselves, it will always be horrifying to hurt and kill others. 


And keep praying it will help if you are a believer. 


More: Lucifer Effect
Lucifer
Lucifer Effect Overview

P.S: A free version of the book is available. 

Hunger Is A Daily Companion In Somalia

Donate 

The Death Of Qaddafi

Death is a natural end for all of us. There is no happiness in death, no gloating, nothing at all. Death should be observed with silence and silence alone. No matter who died, what is their relation to you and how badly they hurt you. 

The funny thing is that we got so happy when someone who hurt us die thinking that his/her death is an end to our sufferings. But it never is, the end to our sufferings comes from within us. And their death might be their end to their own sufferings. Believing in the hereafter,a God who is just, hell and heaven might help a lot but what if you don't believe in that , how is it going to help you ? 

Those two days were so upsetting to me not because Qaddafi is my favorite president -or whatever title he has-.The news of his death after being captured was so bad because of the way he was killed -the way the rebels killed him . The Libyan council really need a PR company to make them know how and when to spread a lie. They should of have lied about his death, claimed it to be during battles. But to claim to be pious and then kill a man after his surrender, a prisoner of war is beyond imagination. Not only its against any religion rules, it's against all human rights and mostly humanity. What difference does that make us from those who have tortured us ?. If Qaddafi was a teacher he would be the best, making his student follow his rules. 

The funny thing is that-as always-when you raise your voice against brutality and dignity then you are with someone. Damn you Bush you made people believe so much in with/against policy !!. But when you treat your POW with dignity, when you treat your enemy with dignity, when you allow them the fair trials and treatments they didn't allow you then you are a better human. Claiming that they are only human being and acted upon their  anger and emotions is a problem because someone only lives once and when you kill someone after being your prisoner there is no chance in a second chance, in him/her being raised from the dead and being treated better the next time. It's now or never. 

The worst thing is those how call them "sheikhs" and starting issuing fatwas about the death of Qaddafi. you shouldn't say these nice things about him or that because he is a dictatorship !!! really? wasn't he for over 40 years? weren't you his guests in someone of these years? . Wonder where did your condemnation against his brutality were all these years ? " Gone with the wind" !! . If you have the power to speak and didn't then it's better to shut up now. 

Humanity needs a huge lesson in humanity.

P.S: I don't judge anyone, I don't dare. I only condemned their actions. 

Child Marriage

Read more:

Girls Not Brides: Ending Child Marriage

Why Does Child Marriage Happen ?

Child Marriage

World Food Day,16 October:"Food prices - from crisis to stability".

Can you believe that there is enough food in the world for everyone !!. 

Then why there is famine in Somalia!!

Why so many people die because of shortage of food !!

Famine should be a Crime Against Humanity. 

World Food Day, 16 October 2011

This year theme is 

 "Food prices - from crisis to stability".

Food prices - from crisis to stability

Price swings, upswings in particular, represent a major threat to food security in developing countries. Hardest-hit are the poor. According to the World Bank, in 2010-2011 rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty.

“FOOD PRICES – FROM CRISIS TO STABILITY” has been chosen as this year’s World Food Day theme to shed some light on this trend and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.

On World Food Day 2011, let us look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society. (source)

You have to see this interactive map, please click.

http://horn.wfp.org/main.html

You Against Hunger 

https://www.wfp.org/donate/fillthecup?icn=homepage-donate-cup&ici=big-button-link

Sign the petition:

 Ending Hunger 

 More:- 

Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition

The Right To Food 

FAO Initiative on Soaring Food Prices

feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger

Food Security 

World Food Prize

International Day of Non-Violence

Source

The International Day of Non-Violence is observed on 2 October, the birthday of Mohandas Gandhi. This day is referred to in India as Gandhi Jayanti.

In January 2004, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi had taken a proposal for an International Day of Non-Violence from a Hindi teacher in Paris teaching international students to the World Social Forum in Bombay. The idea gradually attracted the interest of some leaders of India's Congress Party ("Ahimsa Finds Teen Voice", The Telegraph, Calcutta) until a Satyagraha Conference resolution in New Delhi in January 2007 initiated by Sonia Gandhi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu called upon the United Nations to adopt the idea.

On 15 June 2007 the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence. The resolution by the General Assembly asks all members of the UN system to commemorate 2 October in "an appropriate manner and disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness." 

(Source)

                                                                          Source 

You can read more here :-

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22926&Cr=non&Cr1=violence

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/ga10601.doc.htm

http://www.un.int/india/2007/ind1334.pdf

Source

Famine in Somalia

An info graphic depicting famine in Somalia by the numbers shared by The Washington Post.

Seven hundred and fifty thousand Somalis may die of starvation this year. That’s equivalent to wiping out every single person in Washington, plus 150,000 more.

Source 

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A Son Returns to the Agony of Somalia

ONE has to be careful about stories. Especially true ones. When a story is told the first time, it can find a place in the listener’s heart. If the same story is told over and over, it becomes less like a presence in that chest and more like an X-ray of it.

The beating heart of my story is this: I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. I had a brief but beautiful childhood filled with poetry from renowned relatives. Then came a bloody end to it, a lesson in life as a Somali: death approaching from the distance, walking into our lives in an experienced stroll.

At 12 years old, I lost three of the boys I grew up with in one burst of machine-gun fire — one pull from the misinformed finger of a boy probably not much older than we were.

Read The Whole Story : NYTimes.com

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Sabra and Chatila

A must read about this terrible massacre happened on September,16. 1982

Lebanon: Sabra and Chatila Massacre Remembered 29 Years On 

Somalia

 المجاعة تجتاح الصومال والعالم يراقب من بعيد

لميس فرحات من بيروت

تمنع حركة الشباب الاسلامية في الصومال دخول المساعدات إلى المناطق التي تسيطر عليها، بعدما ضربت موجة الجفاف والمجاعة الصومال مخلفة عشرات الآلاف من القتلى. وناشدت الامم المتحدة المجتمع الدولي للتدخل وعدم الوقوف مكتوف اليدين.

بيروت: هل سيقف العالم مكتوف اليدين ليشاهد 750 ألف صومالياً يموتون جوعاً؟ ضربت موجة الجفاف والمجاعة الصومال مخلفة عشرات الآلاف من القتلى، في الوقت الذي تمنع حركة الشباب الاسلامية دخول المساعدات إلى المناطق التي تسيطر عليها.

وأطلق مسئولون بالأمم المتحدة الخميس تحذيرات شديدة من امكانية وقوع كارثة قد تعصف بحياة نحو750 الف صومالي بسبب نقص الطعام ، مناشدين المجتمع الدولي بالتدخل وعدم الوقوف مكتوف الأيدي.

ونقلت صحيفة "نيويورك تايمز" الأمريكية عن مسؤولي الامم المتحدة - في تقرير بثته على موقعها الالكتروني بشبكة الانترنت- قولهم ان جماعة الشباب الإسلامية المتطرفة بالصومال تعرقل وصول أية مساعدات من وكالات الاغاثة الخارجية إلى المناطق التي تسيطر عليها، مشيرة إلى ان 750 ألف صومالي لن يجدوا الطعام خلال الأشهر القليلة القادمة هذا فضلاً عن عشرات الآلاف الذين لقوا حتفهم قبل ذلك.

وأشارت وكالات الاغاثة إلى أن الأمطار سوف تهطل قريباً على الصومال، إلا ان ذلك سيحدث قبل نمو أية محاصيل زراعية، كما أن الأمراض مثل الملاريا والكوليرا والتيفوئيد والحصبة ستكون قد اجتاحت السكان "ذوي المناعة الضعيفة" الأمر الذي سيؤدي إلى وفاة أعداد مهولة من الشعب الصومالي.

وذكّرت الصحيفة ببدايات عام 1990 حين عانت الصومال من مجاعة مشابهة وقامت مجموعة من "البلطجية قساة القلب" -على حد وصف الصحيفة- باعتراض شاحنات المساعدات الغذائية المتجهة للصومال مما اسفر عن تجويع الأطفال الذين تحولوا إلى  صور مروعة لهياكل عظمية في الرمال.

وأشارت الصحيفة إلى أن العالم كان أكثر استعداداً للتدخل عام 1990، فقد احتشدت الامم المتحدة وراء اكثر من 25 الف جندي أميركي في بعثة كلفت ملايين الدولارات لصد المسلحين المتطرفين وتمهيد الطريق لإرسال الإمدادات الغذائية للشعب الجائع.

أما النقيض لذلك، فهو ما حدث الاسبوع الماضي في القمة الاقليمية "الباهتة" لبحث المجاعة في القرن الافريقي والتي عقدت في العاصمة الكينية نيروبي، فقد اقترح رئيس الوزراء الاثيوبي ماليز زيناوي بناء ممرات انسانية بالقوة لمساعدة قافلات المساعدات الانسانية بتسليم شحناتها للمناطق التي تسيطر عليها جماعة الشباب، الأمر الذي لاقى ترحيباً من عدد قليل من الدول المانحة الغربية.

وأشار العديد من المحللين إلى أن القوات العسكرية الاجنبية لم تنجح في حل المشكلة الصومالية ولا يبدو أنهم سيستطيعون حلها في الوقت الراهن، فهذه المجاعة ليست نتيجة منع جماعة الشباب إدخال المساعدات الغذائية الى البلاد، بل نتيجة دولة محطمة تسبب فيها مخربون.

واتخذ المحللون مثالاً على ذلك العاصمة الصومالية مقديشو حيث انسحب منها جماعة الشباب تاركين الحكومة الانتقالية الصومالية مسيطرة على مساحات كبيرة من المدينة، وبدلاً من ان تترجم الحكومة سيطرتها في مساعدة الشعب الصومالي، قام جنود الحكومة 

بنهب شاحنات المساعدات وإطلاق النيران على الناس الجوعى.

المصدر : ايلاف 

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AU Blames International Indifference for Somalia Famine Deaths

An African Union report says many people are dying in famine-stricken Somalia because of international indifference to their plight. AU officials are urging the United Nations and the donor community to move quickly now that Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked militants are in retreat.

African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping said Somalia’s famine is needlessly claiming lives that could have been saved if early famine warnings had been heeded. 

Read the whole story: voanews.com

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Famine Ravages Somalia in a World Less Likely to Intervene

DOLO, Somalia — Is the world about to watch 750,000 Somalis starve to death? The United Nations’ warnings could not be clearer. A drought-induced famine is steadily creeping across Somalia and tens of thousands of people have already died. The Islamist militant group the Shabab is blocking most aid agencies from accessing the areas it controls, and in the next few months three-quarters of a million people could run out of food, United Nations officials say.

Soon, the rains will start pounding down, but before any crops will grow, disease will bloom. Malaria, cholera, typhoid and measles will sweep through immune-suppressed populations, aid agencies say, killing countless malnourished people.

Read the whole story : NYTimes.com

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more :

alertnet scrapbook little us coverage of famine in horn of africa report says

Somalia Has World's Highest Infant Mortality Rate

Starving for Coverage

About The Arab Spring

These are the two things I don't like about the Arab Spring 


It's probably in our gene as Arabs to be very sentimental or probably a lie we like to believe in ourselves. Anyhow, we love those who stand by us and hate those who don't support us, is it natural ? I think so. We are too extreme in our emotions. emotions are great but when you only think with your heart you wont go far away, you will always be stuck in here and in that moment, ask abused women who keeps telling you how great their husbands are about this...

So here are the two things:


1) Since the beginning of the Arab spring in Tunisia, we started to form "black and white lists" for everyone who is with and against the revolutions. 
People rise because-among many reasons-they can't speak, they can not express their voices and the first thing people do is to silence ANY one who is against the revolution. 
What do we want from someone who is against all this? to lie !!! and then what? he is going to be one of "us" !!! isn't always said that it's best if people be honest even if we don't like their honesty than be a hypocritic !!! 
They-especially actors and singers- have the right to say and believe what they wish and we have the right not to listen to them or watch them ever again,
but none of us have the right to silence the other. 


2) We tend to put those who say anything that support us in the highest places regardless of their actions towards others or sometimes their own people, remember Saddam !!. 
Right now there is no one in the Arab world is as appreciated and loved as the Turkish prime minister "Recep Tayyip Erdogan", I don't mind people loving whom they wish to love and worship, but are we this blind and ignorant in politics to believe that everything he says and do is for our own sake, that he is just doing it because he is all for human rights and feels what the people feel !!! . There is no humanity or feelings in politics. One day soon we will know the price he is asking us to pay for his support. 

And let's not forget-the same way we wont forget about our Arab dictatorship and the west records with human rights-that Turkey itself is not a heaven, Read about The Kurds. While Erdogan was denouncing what is the Syrian president is doing against his people, The Turkish  planes were attacking the Kurds. 

Please don't say they have the right to do so? The way we kept and keep ignoring the rights of all minorities in the Arab world -including the Kurds -is and will be a hug stain in our history. 

I am not contradicting myself when I say don't label those and label these. I am just saying don't do # 1 but also don't substitute a dictator with another one in #2. 

Let it shine and always be an ARAB spring.