In Loving Memory of Vittorio Arrigoni

I met Vittorio at a protest against the proposed Gaza Steel Wall, in Cairo. He was standing quietly holding a banner in Arabic saying: no to the wall of shame. He wasn't trying to grab attention or make a show. We exchanged a few words and I was immediately impressed by his modesty and sense of humour.

A few days later, I was surprised to find that the friendly stranger I met was a famous blogger and author who blogged and reported relentlessly from Gaza to the World, in Italian and English. To him, every Palestinian mattered. To the world, they were just numbers. He spent his time as a human shield with Palestinian fishermen who are randomly shot at by the Israeli navy just for fetching food and a source of living. He danced with the Palestinians, sang with the children, received Israeli fire on their behalf. Throughout Israel's brutal onslaught on Gaza in late 2008-early 2009, Operation Cast Lead, he was one of the few, brave voices who wrote down the madness and delivered it for the world to know.

On every single day, my and 5000 people's Facebook timelines would be filled with a story from Vittorio. He chronicled every single bomb, every death, every smile, every good piece of news that happened in the crowded and impoverished strip. On every single day, he risked being the next Rachel Corrie or Tom Hurndall. To find a Palestinian resisting Zionism is normal and understandable, but to find an Italian national putting his life on the line, leaving behind the relative safety and comfort of family and home, to live in Gaza and support its people in every way possible, is an act of heroism. And Vittorio is a hero.

I have always wanted to write this post, ever since I knew him. For some reason I never did. I did thank him in person for his activism, but he had always rejected any kind of praise. I knew that if I had written this post and showed it to him, he would have never read it. I expected him to die in Gaza, in one of the random missiles perhaps. But he has suffered, he has been singled out and murdered. Maybe this was the only way for him to not be a number, to make him known in more parts of the world, to let his voice, his Palestinian voice, be reached.

Vittorio Arrigoni is killed, but Gaza is not. Palestine is not. Our spirit is not broken. Every brave and just citizen of the world will continue to carry out what Vittorio Arrigoni stood up for; a free Palestine. Vittorio lived, and died, for Gaza to be free. We shall see to that, we promise. We will end the siege and set Vittorio's brothers and sisters free.

Updates from Egypt

Allow me to be too lazy to write separate posts about each of the important incidents that have taken place in the land of wonders.

The highly anticipated Tuesday 21st of September, Abdin square, or rather a dumpster-turned protest scene. The People's Democratic Movement for Change (Hashd), a leftist movement, called for this protest against the expected presidential-succesion in Egypt. News spread that whoever ventured close to the palace was immediately arrested. So a couple hundred of honest people decided to stand on said dumpster and started chanting anyway. Of course, every now and then protesters were attacked. The most horrifying moment was, though, when we suddenly found a march of fellow-protesters coming toward us. Due to my length, I don't know what happened. But suddenly the whole 200 ppl, backed by 2000 soldiers, were rushing towards me, and I was jolted out of the security cordon. A few tense minutes passed before security forces rearranged themselves and the cordon was large enough to include both groups.

I estimate the protesters to have been around 400 to 500, but it is not only about the numbers. Photos of Gamal Mubarak's photos burning were widely circulated and chants accusing Mubarak senior (oh, man. we actually have to start telling them apart) of trading Jerusalem for his son were shouted. It is the effect of the photos and videos posted that also carries defiance. We do not want to be ruled by Mubarak junior. We do not want to have sham elections no more. We do not want to be ruled by a bunch of businessmen who eat up most of Egypt's wealth and leave the bones for the workers. Or, for that matter, a bunch of businessmen who are able to drown a thousand and thirty four people and manage to flee the country, never to be held accountable. Gamal Mubarak's rule only means more unfair distribution of wealth, more thuggery, more unsaftey, more autocracy, more people dying of torture or negligence. We are already rolling down a steep hill, and Gamal Mubarak will be our rock bottom.

September 22nd, October Courthouse. Judges order the policemen, whom Shadi Maged accuses of torturing him, to be arrested. Reminder: I did assert that this is the land of wonders. So this court order may or may not mean that they're in jail now.

September 25th, second trial of the murderers of Khaled Said. Same silly attempt to intimitade pro-justice protesters. Police gathered a number of thugs, or informers, or random ppl who were bribed to protest for the police. Trial was adjourned to the 23rd of October.
I cannot even imagine how his family must be feeling now. Always hanging their hope on justice, only for justice to be deferred, or hushed, or obliterated.

Israeli Democracy in a Picture

السبت وقفة احتجاجية على الحصار وضرب أسطول الحرية

نرجو الحضور ونشر الدعوة

السكوت على حصار غزة خطيئة لا تغتفر

أعلنت الحملة العالمية لكسر الحصار على غزة 5 يونيو يوما عالميا للإحتجاج على الحصار وضرب أسطول الحرية

ويأتي هذا في الوقت الذي يتفنن فيه النظام المصري في

وضع العراقيل أمام حركة المساعدات والأفراد في معبر رفح

والحد من المواد المسموح بدخولها عبر المعبر

وهو ما يكشف زيف إدعائه بفتح المعبر

لنقف معا ضد الحصار الذي دمر غزة ويهدف لتركيع مقاومتها

من أجل فك الحصار على غزة ومن أجل فتح معبر رفح بشكل حقيقي

وتضامنا مع شعب فلسطين ومقاومته الباسلة وقوافل فك الحصار الشجاعة

نشارك أحرار العالم بوقفة احتجاجية غدا

السبت 5 يونيو، الساعة 6 مساءا

أمام نقابة الصحافيين

أفتحوا معبر رفح بشكل حقيقي

أفتحوا معبر رفح أمام قوافل المناصرة

تمرير التبرعات لقوات الإحتلال عبر معبر العوجة على أنها فتح للمعبر أكاذيب ساذجة لا تخدع أحدا

حركة كلنا مقاومة

يا للعار

الأمن المصري يقتل أربعة فلسطينيين في النفق
وطبعاً لازم يطلعوا مهربين وبتوع أسلحة وقتالين قتلة!
الخبر على الجزيرة بيقول إن الجيش هو اللي فجر النفق
الجيش
يا للعار
يا للعار
يا للعار

مقتل مجند مصري عل الحدود: عشان الغباء ليه ناسه

أي حد مابيفهمش أ ب سياسة حيفهم إن طريقة مصر في التعامل مع قافلة شريان الحياة والحرية لغزة تميزت بالغباء السياسي الشديد...السلطات المصرية المفروض إنهم عارفين إن الناس مش سايبة أهلها وبلدها ودراستها وشغلها ومتشحططين ونايمين على الأرض ودافعين مبالغ عشان يقولوا لهم هش يتهشوا، منظمو القافلة ضحوا بحاجات كتير أهمها سلامتهم وحياتهم عشان يقدروا يناصروا غزة ويقدموا للمحاصرين اللي يقدروا عليه من المساعدات...

دلوقتي أنا ماقريتش الخبر بالتفصيل لإني لا أثق في معظم وسائل الإعلام لكن أي سيناريو حصل معناه إن السلطات المصرية متحملة المسئولية...لو الفلسطينيين هما اللي بدأوا الضرب ده لإن الأمن المصري مستأسد عليهم وسايب الإسرائيليين ينتهك الحدود ويقتل المجندين من غير ما مصر تقول بم حتى...ولسه امبارح الشيخ حازم أبو إسماعيل (من القلة أصحاب الضمير في الفضائيات) قايل إنك كل ما تخنق ناس أكتر كل ما مقاومتهم بتزيد، لما مصر محاصرة غزة وكمان تبني جدار عازل عشان يموتوا ويستسلموا لإسرائيل وده مش حيحصل يبقى لازم ده يسبب غضب ويشعل الموقف أكتر ما هو متهبب، ولو المصريين هما اللي بدأوا الضرب وده الأرجح لإن منظمي القافلة اتضربوا أصلاً من وهما في القاهرة برضو مصر متحملة مسئولية المجند اللي مات...وطبعاً دلوقتي بقى في إيديهم دليل واضح جداَ إن مصر أمنها القومي مهدد وإن الفلسطينيين بيضربوا النار علينا!

والكلام ده مش أنا بس اللي بقولوه، ده عماد الدين أديب حبيب الحكومة قالها والمستشار جودت الملط قالها، إن سوء إدارة الأزمات مستشري على جميع المستويات...والقافلة كانت ممكن تعدي بسهولة أكتر من كده بدل الفضيحة اللي اتفضحناها واللي هندفع تمنها غالي قوي وأهو أول مصري دفع التمن مات النهاردة...لكن الأمن طبعاً لا يرحم ولا يخلي رحمة ربنا تنزل.

هكتب إن شاء الله تدوينة عن رأيي في الجدار قريب.

World stands up for Gaza

Something to smile about for the new year:

From Al-Jazeera

Photos by 3arabawy

By Iman Badawi

آراء المثقفين المصريين المعارضين للجدار الفولاذي

علاء الأسواني: هل تدفع غزة ثمن التوريث؟

فهمي هويدي: الجدار حماية لأمن إسرائيل

First Anniversary of Gaza Massacre

Gaza Freedom March

I knew about the march around a month ago but got busy in everyday shit until I found the link to the event on FB only to find out in the end that the registeration is closed!
For a couple of days I kept thinking how I can get my parents to agree on this. I won't have to even ask anymore. What a bummer. Not only this, but the Egyptian authorities do not usually let Egyptians or Palestinians in and out easily at all!
So put simply, we are stuck here when we should be showing solidarity with Palestinians in every way we can. Instead of being part of what hopefully will be another pressure on Israel to end the inhuman seige on Gaza, I am supposed to just move on with my life and do everyday stuff.

In Defence of Football Fans

The average Egyptian does not have business projects to look up to. He does not know whether he will have enough money to provide for himself in case he gets very ill, or worse, if a son or daughter gets ill. The average Egyptian takes up two or three jobs, spends 4 hours daily squeezed in public transportation, does not have a proper social life. The average Egyptian is savagely caught up in the rat race, and the only relief he can look up to is football. Now imagine that this relief gives your country the chance to be internationally prominent, wouldn't you feel proud? We see the Egyptian government failing to defend the hungry, poor and defencless, starting from its own people and ending with Palestinians and Iraqis. As soon as the US invaded Iraq, all Mubarak could utter was "We hope the US operation will end soon". I am not premusing he could do anything else. There was nothing else Egypt could do given the circumstances. When hungry and cold Palestinians stormed through the Egyptian border a year and a half ago all Abul Gheit said was Egypt will break the bones of any Palestinian who would dare get hungry and look for food again. What's the use of a gate if you will keep it shut off most of the time, except if what you're really doing is imprisoning Gaza? Here goes a political failure.
No one knows if Egyptian products are sold abroad, no one knows if there is an international Egyptian market. EVERYONE knows where the revenues of tourism and the Suez Canal really go. The average Egyptian sees only shillings of the billions the government promises to provide as July bonus or social bonuses. Here goes an economic failure.
Doesn't it logically follow a social failure? You bet.
Now, when the only victory, or even facade of victory, looms in the distance, you still want do not want the Egyptians to breathe? So basically Egyptians are asked to be poor, hungry, hopeless and smileless? The overwhelming majority of Egyptians love their country, there is no doubt about this, and they wait for any chance to show their feelings. When they express patriotism through strikes, or protests, or forming virtual youth movements, they are hunt down, beaten, tortured and even killed. Workers who protest low pay do not only want to improve their condition, they want to give their country, they want to work and produce. The Tanta Flax and Oil Company workers' chants gave priority to falx over their own lives. I have never seen patriotism similar to this.
According to Alaa Al-Aswany (arabic), football is the only area where Egyptians are allowed to express their patriotism freely. They are not beaten up by the police. They are given a real chance to participate. This is why you see thousands of Egyptians in stadiums chanting and cheering for hours on end but a few tens or hundreds calling for political and economic reform in demonstrations. Isn't it only logical?
If so, why do we find voices rising before every grand football event like tomorrow's calling Egyptians stupid and naive, just because they prioritise football above almost any other area?
To begin with, this accusation is pure false. We have seen thousands of Egyptians chanting for Palestine and Iraq, risking being arrested and tortured, even school children participated in anti-Israeli protests. So...no. Egyptians defend Palestinians and Iraqis, Egyptians now stand up for their rights and voice their opinions. Egyptians collected money and food and managed to give them to Palestinians whenever the oppressive Egyptian regime allowed. Egyptian doctors have ventured inside the Gaza war zone and performed operations on what was left of Palestinian raid victims.
It is horrendously unfair to say Egyptians only ever care about football. If you have two chances to express patriotism, the first involves sexual and physical assault, passing out, losing your job, getting arrested and/or tortured, the second involves being among masses of people who share your opinion and your passion, you are allowed to express yourself without being called "qilla mundassa" or "wishful thinkers", which would you choose?
Why are you denying Egyptians their only vent, their only way to feel the rush of victory?

ذكرى استشهاد محمد الدرة

Who's barbaric now?

When scores of armed forces and Jewish settlers attack the holy mosque as part of a religious celebration (!!), who is acting barbaric? The people defending their mosque or the ones with live ammunition? And when 16 Palestinians are wounded in the attack...what does it tell you about who the terrorists are?

Obama contradicting himself

Perhaps the only difference between Obama and Bush is the first's eloquence and intelligence; intelligence, however, but not fairness or justice in any way.

I believe any discussion of a conflict should begin and end when it comes to human life. Obama has been so kind-hearted as to bring to light the torture and genocide that Jews have faced in the Holocaust and, to reduce us to tears, he spoke in numbers: We have been bereaved by losing 6 million innocent Jews who had been persecuted for many years...three thousand American men women and children who did nothing, nothing, were killed in 9/11.

What about our numbers? Has no one told you that your troops in this war you did not choose (!!) killed more than a million and a half Iraqis? No mention of them? No mention of the children killed in the Haditha killings? No mention of forcing running water into people's mouths and then ruling it out as torture? Has no one told Obama of the young boy whose brain has been dashed out under US rockets and dead body shown on the 20th of March 2003 on AlJazeera? No equality for him? So as I get it, the equality he spoke of for much of the speech applies to Muslims and other minorities in the US and for Copts in Egypt, but not to our children.

No one expects him to be the saviour, and the poeple incessantly cheering and clapping during his speech are basically dumb to think that just because his middle name is Hussein, he will be fair and just. He wants Palestinians to recognise Israel, though he also said that Palestinians have long suffered from occupation! So, according him, Palestine is occupied by a most bloody state, but who cares, the bond between the US and Israel is unbreakable, so you have to be squeezed in between.

Never in his speech did he mention anything about Muslims being victims of unholy wars and monstrous submission on the part of the rest of the world. Only Bosnians and Sudanese people have suffered, but Palestinians are muderers who fire rockets at the poor Israeli people. Palestinians who are killed, tortured, imprisoned, denied a home, denied clean water and food if any at all, should abandon violence. So when Israel fires rockets and bombs at the densely populated Gaza, when one out of four victims of this war is a child, Palestinians are simply expected to abandon violence, fill their mouths with dust, their hands with soil from their children's graves and their bellies with White Phosphorous, just be quite and take it like a man!

Pictures of the lastest Gaza holocaust are available here:
www.tahyyes.org
www.justicenownetwork.blogspot.com

Ahmadinejad Circus?

We know that in the dirty world of politics, there isn't much to say, weapons always speak louder, so here are simply a few notes on the Ahmadi Nejad furor:

• Israel is a racist state. It specifically targets Arabs whether in Gaza and the West Bank or within Israel. Arab-Israelis are denied proper housing and healthcare. They are denied proper education and are not allowed to study their own history. The Israeli war machine targets Arabs in particular, and has fought six wars against Arabs since it was planted in the Middle East. A recent study showed how Israelis even take up four times the amount of potable water allowed for the Palestinians. Israeli rabbis have repeatedly described Arabs as insects. If this is not racism, I wonder what is.
• Europeans champion freedom of speech. That is why they snubbed Muslim fury at the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, saying we even attack Jesus in our plays and books, so why are Muslims so angry. Now, when the President of Iran, not an amateur cartoonist, states not only his opinion but also a historical fact, the ambassador of Britain in Geneva sees that he has gone too far! So depicting our Prophet as a terrorist, when he wasn't, is freedom of speech, whereas criticising the discriminatory polices of the state of Israel, which is a documented fact, is not?
• All due respect to the victims of the Holocaust. I don't get why Netanyahu linked between the two events; the anniversary of the Holocaust and Nejad's statements. Israel as a Zionist state was the object of his criticism, not Jews per se, and I don't see why any righteous Jew should see his statements a threat!
• It takes courage, nay, it takes absolute power, to speak the truth in this circus of a world. I bow to Ahmadinejad.

احنا كمان مش هاننهزم

يعني الفلسطينيين مش لاقيين دوا

ولا أكل

والصواريخ بتتحدف عليهم وهم نايمين

عيالهم اتحرقوا

وطول النهار والليل عمالين ينقلوا جرحى وشهداء لحد ما المستشفيات بقت بتحطهم على الأرض

كل ده وبيقولوا مش هاننهزم

مش هانركع

والمقاومة مستمرة

احنا بقى قاعدين في بيوتنا سالمين غانمين جنب الدفايات

الأكل والشرب والكهربا موجودين واحنا مش مقدرينهم

وعمالين نقول خلاص مصر ماتت...خلاص مفيش فايدة...احنا حاسين بالعجز

وبقينا بنتهم بعض بالخيانة بدل ما نشوف اللى اسرائيل بتعمله فينا

يعنى حققنا كل اللى اسرائيل عايزاه

انقسمنا وقلبنا على بعض

روح التضامن ضعفت

أي تحرك سياسي المفروض الحكام هما اللي يعملوه لكن التحرك الشعبي مسئوليتنا احنا

احنا مسئولين اننا نتبرع للفلسطيين في نقابة الأطباء

الأطباء مسئولين إنهم ينضموا للقوافل اللي بتعالج الجرحى حسب ما يقدروا

اللي يقدر يحتج ينزل مظاهرات عشام ماحدش يستجرى يقول إن المصريين انهزموا

بس الله يخليكوا بلاش اليأس والاستسلام ده

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نقابة الأطباء: دار الحكمة، 42 ش القصر العيني، وسط المدينة، القاهرة

"Never again" doesn't apply to Gaza

Whenever a genocide took place...the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, Srebrenica, the world said they cannot let this happen again. Now the Palestinians are killed, now, as I am posting this, and the world will just let it pass, then say 'never again'.