Week 3 :: 2023
Adventures with Bad Hijabi Woche im Rückblick
Can you believe we have already passed through the first three weeks of 2023?
What have you accomplished in these first few weeks of the brand new year?
This week marked the 7th anniversary since the man I co-parented with hung himself from a soccer goal post in a local South Vancouver park early one morning. He did this 2 days before our son turned 30. I still harbour a lot of rage toward him for doing that to my boy, who only asked his father, just a few weeks before, to please hang in there, dad. This week also marked 6 years since my dad died, a thing that drove me around the bend for a time—quite literally. I went nearly two years after his death without any significant measure of sleep and I don’t know how I survived that time to tell you the truth. Last year at this time my life had descended into hell and I thought it would come to a grinding halt and implode.
I don’t recognise myself when I look back and yet I do. I can barely believe the difference a year of blood, sweat + tears makes in terms of mindset.
Coming this week — Lawrence of Arabia | Max of Arabia | How these two men set the Muslim world on a course | British Fascists | The British League Palestine Branch + the Arab bombing of the Ben Yehuda Street (Jewish) business district in Jerusalem
Coming soon - The Balfour Declaration | the fateful appointment of the Grand Mufti in 1921 | Muslim Brotherhood | Anti-Jewish Pogroms + anti-semitism in Europe | Jews in the Ottoman world
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I’ll recap the week, in case you blinked and missed anything. Please do read, like, and share the sh1t out of this stuff if it resonates with you. We are diving deep into the research and making some important linkages. Your support of this work, a labour of love, we most appreciate.
On Monday I wrote about a forgotten interview, in which a Syrian PLO leader discusses the Palestinian national identity.
Organization gave an interview on 31 March 1977 to James Dorsey—then a young journalist working for the Dutch paper Trouw.
‘Wij zin alleen Palestijin om politieke reden,’ the Dutch headline quotes Mohsen, We only like Palestinian for political reasons. The article describes the intention of the PLO vis à vis Israel and Jews quite clearly — the Arab resentment of Jewish presence on Arab land.
With Tuesday’s post, I brought forward the list of Nazis who received sanctuary in Egypt and went on to work in the information ministry and the PLO.
Alois Brunner, chief aide to Eichmann who the planned the Holocaust’s final solution, ended up in Damascus, where he worked for the Syrian police intelligence and torture instruction for years.
Franz Abromeitz, another Eichmann aide believed to have gone to Egypt.
Hans Appler, who worked for Goebbels Minister of Information, became Salah Chaffer and worked in Egypt’s Propaganda Ministry.
Nasser took in a number of Nazis in order to train his military + police forces and to produce anti-Israeli propaganda, according to an Israeli undercover spy.
Johann von Leers, Nazi Propagandist, worked in Egypt’s Information Minister as Omar Amin.
In Wednesday’s post, I revisited I.F. Stone’s book This is Israel and I summarised the details the 1947-48 civil war.
Ill-armed, outnumbered, however desperate their circumstances, the Jews stood fast. The Arabs very early began to run away. First the wealthiest families went; it was estimated that 20,000 of them left the country in the first two months of internal hostilities. By the end of January the exodus was so alarming that the Palestine Arab Higher Committee in alarm asked neighbouring Arab countries to refuse visas to these refugees and to seal the borders against them. —I.F. Stone, p. 27.
On Thursday I reviewed the history surrounding the fall of the Ottoman empire, since understanding the state of the Muslim world today requires us to understand that history.
Things to keep in mind when consider the intellectual state of the Muslim world:
The Arab leadership always sought ZionistFree, the M/E version of JudenFrei
The British appeasing extremists set the stage for middle east politics
Max of Arabia - father of jihad-holy war
Lawrence of Arabia - father of modern day guerrilla warfare [in the middle east]
Muslim + Arab leadership each have a deeply anti-semitic bias
The Muslim world had heavy influence from both Soviet + Nazi propaganda, in addition to Muslim Brotherhood/pan-Islamism
Zionism = Jews belonging to Eretz Yisrael, and having the right to form a free and democratic nation
On Friday, I wrote about the connection between the religion + emotional hygiene.
What if religion could be wound care for the psyche? What if religion in modernity means learning self control and not controlling others with rules about rituals and narratives we’ve projected onto material objects or structures or procedures for living life? What if we traded in al-Banna and al-Ghazali for Rūmī and Ibn Rushd? What if we stopped taking God’s book so flipping literally? What if we had thoughts we conjured ourselves with the intellect God gave us? IKR it sounds so fcuking radical and punk! What if we stopped treating ideas, our creations, like they are more important than humans, God’s creation? Read that last line again. Then read it again.
On Saturday, I dropped the second Adventures of Bad Hijabi Comic weekly serial. This week Bah Hijabi wrestled a Demogorgon at the mosque.
Being in a group of Muslims dominated by Muslim groupthink inevitably ends up feeling like trying to have a chat with a Demogorgon—uncomfortable + brain draining, and disquieting. Religious community can feel like you’re surrounded by hoomans who only see you as a currency in their game of worship.
How has the beginning of 2023 turned out? What will you do with this whole new year? How will you build self-compassion into your life? What will you fight FOR? What values will you champion? How will you fight for freedom and joy for humanity? Where will you grow love? What will you give the world this year? What will you give yourself? What if these last two questions are the same question?
You are loved beyond measure. You are worthy because you exist. Go. Be. Do.