Forthcoming
I don't want to see stores looted or buildings burned; but African- Americans have been living in burning buildings for years, choking on smoke as flames burn closer and closer. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
That’s not a chip on my shoulder. That’s your foot on my neck. – Malcolm X
"We must never, ever give up. We must be brave. We must be courageous." John Lewis, activist, congressman. 1940-2020
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ Dalai Lama
"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public." Professor Cornel West.
"Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat." Audre Lorde
"The serious function of racism is distraction". 1995, Toni Morrison; Portland lecture, Playing in The Dark
“If I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.” Nora Ephron
"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another." author Toni Morrison (1931- 2019)
“If I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me”; Nora Ephron, author/comedian
"Make your story count". Michelle Obama
"Social pain is understood through the lens of racial animus". Researcher/author Sean McElwee writing in Salon, 2016
"We are citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear." Chelsea Manning; activist/whisleblower
“My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I’m going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you, And no fascist minded people, like you, will drive me from it. Is that clear?” Paul Robeson; activist/singer
“We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent”. from civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson
“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?” Frederick Douglass, WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS 4TH JULY? 07.05.1852 (full text in blog)
Senator Elizabeth Warren "We're a country that is built on our differences; that is our strength, not our weakness"
"We are more alike than we are different" ~ Maya Angelou
As a Black writer, I was expected to accept the role of victim. That made it difficult in the beginning to be a writer. James Baldwin
I often feel that there must have been something that I should’ve done that I didn’t do. But I can’t identify what it is that I didn’t do. That’s the first difficulty. And the second is, what makes you think you’re it?
Harry Belafonte, activist and singe
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble; It's what you know for sure that just ainst so.
Mark Twain
You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you.
Mary Tyler Moore
You can’t defend Christianity by being against refugees and other religions
Pope Francis:
"I don't have to be what you want me to be". Muhammad Ali
"The Secret of Living Well and Longer: eat half, walk double, laugh triple, and love without measure" attributed to Tibetan sources
Recent audio posts include interviews with Rumi interpreter Shahram Shiva, London-based author Aamer Hussein, South African Muslim scholar, professor Farid Esack, and Iraqi journalist Nermeen Al-Mufti's brief account of Kirkuk City history. Your comments on our blogs are always welcome.
Articles
Algerian Agricultural Experiments in the Sahara
- April 01, 2006
- Soufi from the River, Soufi from the Sand
by Barbara Nimri AzizWho else but we built our domes?
--- Bubakar Murad
Who but we preened these poems?
To whom else do sand dunes yield
A land aglow with golden jewel?
Come,
See a rare pride.
Come,
See how this sand breathes sand;
How these brown arms
Render harsh earth so supple.
How these brown arms
Lift away trouble.
Come.
See, from sun’s hot rays of El-Souf
light enters any dark crevice.
(Translation: Rachida Mohammedi)At the entrance to a private experimental farm near the city of El-Oued in the Algerian sahara stands a modest statue of an early settler of this oasis: the ‘rammaal’. He is neither a camel trader nor a herdsman, although El-Oued is home to both. Rimal means sand in ‘arabic’, and rammaal is the humble farmer and sand porter whose muscle and plodding determination made El-Oued’s early date palms grow.
Algeria Open For Business
- October 28, 2005
It’s confirmed by the US government. Algeria is back on the map, according to the United States. Less than two weeks after the country’s national referendum on peace and reconciliation (Middle East International 7610), the American embassy in Algiers announced that it was to reopen its consular office after a ten-year gap.
It is no coincidence that the American announcement comes 12 days after President Bouteflika’s success in the referendum with little opposition or significant violence.
Iraq, International Women's Day, 2003
- March 08, 2003
March 8, 2003. International Women's Day!
So what? It's still war mode for Iraqi women as well as their sons and sisters, their fathers, their brothers and babies.
In Mosul, 400 km north of the Iraqi capital, it is a glorious spring day. How could a war be looming? How could thousands of tanks be lined up along three borders, ready to mow over us?
Iraqi Scientists Outside History
- September 01, 1996
Archeologist Walid al-Jadir was one of those scientists who somehow connect everything they see and hear to their work. His task was to reveal the ancient history of Iraq. “See those hillocks on the landscape?” he once asked me pointing to the dull, winter farmland we were passing on the way to Sippar, the site of his research. “Every one of those hills could be a tell,” he continued. “Probably under each one lays an ancient city. The entire country of Iraq is a treasure.”
Al-Jadir felt a sense of urgency about uncovering his country’s distant past. He was proud of the role his ancestors—the inhabitants of Mesopotamia—played in human civilization as long as 5,000 years ago.
Gravesites: Environmental Ruin in Iraq
- March 09, 2006
- The chain of death created by the Gulf War is a scary thing. I'm not talking about black skies over the blazing oil wells of Kuwait, or charred remains of soldiers on the sand or the incinerated families who had sought protection in a bomb shelter. Those are familiar images of death, recognizable, and however painful, they are finite. With the end of hostilities, they disappear.
"Scheherazade's Legacy: Arab Women Writing" edited by Susan M. Darraj. Foreword by BN Aziz;
- September 07, 2004
- Inevitably, a time arrives in a people’s history when a shared awakening occurs. In varying degrees of awareness, driven by the feeling that “It is up to me to tell my people’s story,” we begin. Or, we are compelled simply to tell my own story. James Baldwin, when he emerged as a political voice, concluded, that he could not accept what he once believed --that he was an interloper, that he could have “no other heritage (than the white heritage) which I could possibly hope to use”, and he would simply have to accept his special attitude, his special place in the world scheme. At one time, he had believed that otherwise, “I would have no place in any scheme”. (Autobiographical Notes, p. 7, Notes of A Native Son, 1955.)
Move Over
- January 10, 2000
Move Over is the title of a poem by Mohja Kahf. And for me it is a statement that Western feminists need to hear. It is time for Western feminists to step aside and let women from other parts of the world speak. Why is it that feminists who serve as book editors and conference organizers urge me to talk about my victimization at the hands of my brother, husband, or another Arab man? Why won’t they hear me explain the injustices of Western actions, for example, in the Gulf War? These women, perhaps more than my Arab brother, are an obstacle to my true liberation.
Demolishing Palestinian Homes--a daily occurance up to the present
- April 05, 1996
- It's quite a spectacle, a Palestinian home being blown apart. Furniture, dishes and clothes, hastily removed, are deposited helter-skelter in the path or road. Villagers stand by, silent and grim. Heavily armed soldiers are massed to prevent any disruption. And confused, awed children turn sullen.
Americans are not accustomed to seeing Israel's 'demolitions policy' at work. Most recently, this policy has been aimed at the families of suicide bombers. But all Palestinians, from toddlers to the elderly, are familiar with it.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama
Tahrir Diwan
- a poem.. a song..
- "In The Heart of the Heart of Another Country"; Interview 2
"In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country"; a passage, recorded in 2006 Flash - Ya Rabbi Mustafa
praises to the Prophet, from Nazira CD, female voices - Book review
- Naguib Mahfouz's
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
reviewed by BN Aziz. - Tahrir Team
Ryme Katkhouda - Read about Ryme Katkhouda in the team page.