THINK-ISRAEL |
Being a renowned and brilliant linguist such as I am, on October 26, I innocently, and full of optimism and good-will, had published in Front Page Magazine — a war-mongering, racist site if ever there was one, judging from its unsavory readership and ignorant authors! — a glossary of useful terms and expressions meant to help delineate and define what speakers and writers mean when they use certain, shall we say, "explosive" words and phrases when describing so complex a circumstance as, as I wrote, "today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) Mid- east."
Inasmuch as it seems that your culture and mine are teetering on the edge of conflict, I believe that persons of good-will, such as myself, need to do what what we must to make certain that misunderstanding and miscommunication do not precipitate a disastrous war in which we will doubtlessly defeat you, not least since we, and in particular our youth, care so much and you and yours seem to care so little.
Perhaps the fact that we have raised a generation of very, very angry young men has something to do with the fact that that our young men are not allowed to have interaction with girls. (We tell them that attraction to young women is a Zionist plot hatched by evil Jews intent on capturing them in the snare of Shaytan. Talk about impressionable!)
Whatever you think of us, you have to admit that prohibition has been a sensational strategy for recruiting plenty of extremely devoted young men who actually volunteer to strap on explosives in hopes of finding unmutilated maidens waiting for them elsewhere. Pretty cool, huh?! Faith is a powerful incentivizer! And a culture that prohibits deduction certainly needs faith!
So, my only purpose was a peaceful one — to make certain that the reader would not be misled by ignorance or prejudice, or as my wise teacher and predecessor, Dr. Edward Said, coined it, "Orientalism," the psychological disease or intellectual offense that imagines that the Western cultures are in some way "better than," or "superior to," as opposed to simply "different from," Arabic or Eastern cultures.
In a nutshell, Dr. Said posited that Westerners, because they are not Orientals, can never know how Eastern people think or why they do what they do. They — Westerners — therefore must never interpret or judge the words, intentions or actions of Middle-Easterners, especially the leaders, all of whom are "Men of the People," serving from the depths of the goodness of their hearts, what is called the Arab Street, which is nothing more than the communal roar for Divine Justice, or for the random murder of Jews or Christians or Hindus or Bahai or Sikhs or Sunnis or Shia or pigs or dogs depending on what's cooking that day.
When Westerners do so — that is, when Westerners think they know what they're talking about — they are not merely mistaken, but also racist. And "racist" is the grand bugaboo of our era. We have learned that if we can persuade that you are racist, we can get you to do anything! Why, you people give money to Hamas and weapons to Hezbollah! What a world!
Dr. Said's reasoning is that a person making a judgment is inherently arrogant because, by virtue of making any judgment, that person a priori believes that his judgment must be right. And since our judgments are different than yours, we must be wrong.
The Grand Flaw is that the Westerner does not realize that he does not and can know the workings of the Oriental mind, and he does not know that he does not know. In imagining that he is right, he is arrogant, which implies that he believes he is better than an Oriental (although how Arabs or Persians, rather than, say Chinese or Japanese, came to be called "Oriental" is beyond me, even if I am a brilliant linguist), and therefore racist. This is Dr. Said's great insight with which he was able to bamboozle ... oops...I mean persuade... Western academia!
For one example, when we hijack an airplane, Western right-wing hard-liners insist this is an aggressive, hostile act. We, the keepers of Oriental consciousness, know this is an act of love. We are just trying to get passengers to their ultimate — and I do mean ultimate! — destinations sooner rather than later!!! (Note: The more exclamations points, the better the argument.)
As you must surely realize by now, we Arabs know that we are never right, or more to the point, we Arabs are right because we know that we are wrong. So, Arabs can never be thought of as "Occidentalist" or racist. We get to be the "Victims of Racism!," which means we win!
For yet another example of such small-minded, wrongful Orientalist thinking, when Mr. Ahmadinejad says that "The Zionist entity must be wiped off the map," Westerners and Israelis, in their sad ignorance, imagine that he is advancing the idea of a nuclear holocaust being brought down upon the heads of Israel. This is purely ignorant Orientalist hogwash. (You should excuse the expression!)
What he is really saying is that "We ('Humanity') are one divine entity united by the divine spark which we all share in common. Therefore, let us light a large flame — a really LARGE flame — that represents the inherent brotherhood of man." "Wiped off the map," in this instance, merely refers to the day when peoples will no longer be divided into nations. And since there will be no nations, we will no longer have need of boundaries and borders, and we therefore will no longer need maps. We will all be one. (Or is that, "We will have won?")
But the point is that even though it is sad that such an idea is so difficult for the robber barons of Wall Street and their CEO cronies, and the imperialistic power mongers of the US political machine to grasp, it is not surprising. After all, what do they have to gain from peace, mutual well-being, free flow of goods, friendship, and all that stuff?
But that Dr. Said's central tenet has been accepted so readily among the great minds of Western academia is one of the astonishing successes in the history of East — West relations. And now these professors are busy inculcating Orientalism — the concoction of such a word is sheer(ia) genius, is it not?! — into the minds of their students so that pretty soon, they'll have to wear a kefiya on campus if they want a passing grade!
Now we are at work at getting Israeli academics to buy into this doctrine. And thus far, we are having far greater success than we ever dreamed possible. Now we are planning an Anti-Israel Apartheid Week on campuses in Israel! Imagine Jewish and Muslim and Christian students, White, Brown and Black, gay and straight, men and women, all marching hand-in-hand protesting Apartheid! How heart-warming! How inspiring!
Mysterious indeed are the ways of Allah!
I have come to realize just how difficult it may be to decipher news about the Middle East, Islam, Israel, the Arab World, and all these powerful and explosive issues of our times for those who rely on such media stalwarts as The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the major television networks, cable news, etc. for their information. For example, how is a person to ascertain whether the slayer of a family is a terrorist or a militant or a gunman or an assailant or an activist or a freedom-fighter?
So, purely as a public service, I have organized the following glossary of the most pertinent terms and expressions, as typically used in the above-mentioned news sources. I hope, insha'allah, the reader will find it helpful to unravel the Gordian Knot of language that is today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) Middle East!
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A Glossary for interpreting news on and from the Middle East Aggression: Killing people who are trying to kill you. Al Qaeda: the terrorist group that, according to American security sources, embodies the world-wide Islamist movement, and that is either "significantly degraded" or is still "extremely dangerous," depending on which government official is doing the talking. Apartheid: The political/social system of the one and only country in the Middle East that integrates Jews, Beduins, Arabs, whites, blacks, Muslems, Ethiopians, Russians, Christians, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Bahai, et al. "Apes and Pigs": See "Jew" below. Arab Emir: Military dictator. Arab King: Military dictator. Arab President: Military dictator. Arab Prime Minister: Military dictator. Arab Spring: Replacement of one dictatorship with another, with the help of Western money and media cheerleading. Arab Street: Enraged mobs chanting and screaming their hatred, determined to annihilate Israel and the Jews. They can often be seen burning American and Israeli flags, passing out candies and firing guns into the air in response to successful murders of Westerners (closely related to): Arab Humiliation: The pervasive feeling on the Arab street generated by their failure to annihilate Israel and the Jews in several wars. Many opinion-makers, Middle East experts and op-ed writers argue that Arab humiliation is at the root of the Middle East conflict; i.e., "If only the Jews would let themselves be destroyed, the Arab street would feel better about themselves, and then there would be peace." Ayatola: Persian dictator. Spiritual leader of that faith that desires to ignite nuclear holocaust in order to bring about the arrival of the Mahdi. (See "Mahdi" below.) Bias: An expression of support for the existence of Israel. Caliphate: The unification of lands ruled in the name of Islam, ruled by a Caliph. (See "Arab King," "Arab President," etc. above.) Compromise: To give something palpable, such as land, in return for a promise not to keep on trying to annihilate you. Developing Country: A country that is not developing. Disproportionate Response: Winning. Diversity: The condition in which all cultures are viewed as equally and inherently virtuous, except for the culture of the West, which is viewed as evil by virtue of imperialism, colonialism and endemic racism (see "Racist" below). Emergency Laws: The law. Father of the Palestinian People: An Egyptian man, raised by his uncle, Hitler's buddy, and one of the world's most successful kleptocrats. (See "PLO" below.) Fatwa: A pronouncement of a mullah that sanctions murder, but only of disagreeable people, like inadequately covered women, Salman Rushdie, etc. Female Genital Mutilation: That ritual of which Western feminist organizations seem, by virtue of their silence, to approve. Hamas: The democratically elected government of Gaza whose founding charter calls for genocide. Hezbollah: The democratic group whose purpose is saving Lebanon from Israeli aggression, and whose founding charter calls for genocide. History: Having nothing whatsoever to do with what has actually happened, but rather being what has come to be called "narrative," i.e., "storytelling." For one example, allusions to the "Ancient Nation of Palestine;" and for another, almost all the Muslem accomplishments President Obama enumerated in his momentous Cairo speech (also see "Rewriting History" below). Holocaust: That genocide that did not happen, but that the Jews orchestrated in order to steal Arab land, and that of which the Jewish presence in Palestine is worse than. Honor Killings: The cultural imperative to murder one's daughter/sister/niece for humiliating male members...(see "Shariah" below). Human Rights: The credo by which murder committed by a person from a country which used to be called "Third World" (now considered racist terminology) is good (see "Resistance" below); retaliatory killing by a person who is either from a developed country, a white person or most especially a Jew, is bad (see "Agression" above). Human Shields: Integral part of Hamas and Hezbollah military strategy. Islamic Republic: Military dictatorship. Israel: Occupied territory (see "Zionist Entity" below). Israeli Prime Minister: Hawkish, right-winger, hard-liner. Jerusalem: City holy to Islam in which the Jews have no history. Jew: The source of all decadence and evil in the world; descendent of apes and pigs. Jihad: The inner spiritual struggle for self-purification or the bloody military struggle for world domination depending on to which journalist and in what language one is speaking. Judeo-Christian Values: The credo of that civilization which has lost all its values, except for that racism is bad, and diversity is good. Koran: The book that was revealed word-for-word to the Prophet Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) by the Angel Gabriel...or not. Leftist: Supporter of PLO (see "PLO" below) and Hamas (see "Hamas" above) and Muslem Brotherhood (see "Muslem Brotherhood" below). Mahdi: The Shia Messiah who has been hiding for centuries at the bottom of a well. Martyr: Someone who kills someone else while killing himself, said to be rewarded for his martyrdom by the acquisition of 72 virgins upon his arrival in Paradise, at least according to what the Prophet Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) said the Angel Gabriel told him (see "Koran" above). Militant, Assailant, Gunman, Activist: terrorist. Moderate Palestinian Leader: Former KGB operative, Holocaust denier, and financier of Munich Olympic massacre. Mosque: A place for the storage of armaments. Muslem Brotherhood: A mostly secular and non-violent political party in Egypt. Occupation: Jewish presence in disputed territory. (See "Israel" above.) Peace: War of attrition. Peace Process: The dismantling of Israel. Peace Talks: The avoidance of peace. PLO: Organization created in 1964 to end the 1967 occupation. Palestinian Authority: The world's most successful kleptocracy. Palestinian Hero: Murderer of children. Palestinian Prime Minister: Moderate, bold (see "Arab Prime Minister" above). Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The authentic Jewish playbook for world domination. Racist: A person who disagrees with or does not like or does not support the reelection of President Obama. Radical Islamic Movement: A group whose stated official goal is genocide (see "Hamas" and "Hezbollah" above). Recognition: A truce until the next time. Refugee: Someone who has refused to take refuge, or who has not been allowed to take refuge. "Religion of Peace": That civilization with which the Judeo-Christian civilization is locked in a war to the death. Resistance: Randomly killing civilians, especially children. Rewriting History: See "History" above. Right: Demand to live in Israel by people who hate it and wish to destroy it. of Return: By people very, very few of whom have ever actually been there. Settlement: An illegal community made up of settlers. (See "Settler" below.) Settler: Someone who builds his house in order to thwart any chance at making peace between Jews and Palestinians. Shariah: The Islamic system of jurisprudence which codifies and dignifies rape, child marriage, specific classes of murder such as honor killings (see "Honor Killings" above), etc. Shia: People who are certain that Sunnis are not real Muslems, and are in fact infidels, and should therefore be slaughtered. Sunni: People who are certain that Shia are not real Muslems, and are in fact infidels, and should therefore be slaughtered. War Crime: Retaliation and defense. Any action whose intent is victory. War on Terror: Pretense that the enemy of the West is made up of small, shadowy groups motivated by childhood poverty (see "Al Qaeda" above). ("We're depraved on account of we're deprived" — apologies to S. Sondheim.) Zionism: The ideology of the Jews who aspire to control, dominate and take over the world. Zionist: Someone who is worse than a Nazi. Zionist Entity: That place that does not exist, as on Arab maps, but that must be destroyed. Editor's Note: Some readers of the original article have suggested additions to the Glossary: Self-defense = murdering Jewish children.
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Why did I become a linguist? I seem to have inherited the traditional Arabic love of language and poetry. As Phillip Hitti wrote in his book, History of the Arabs:
No people in the world manifest such enthusiastic admiration for literary expression and are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs. Modern audiences in Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo can be stirred to the highest degree by the recital of poems.
Ah! Who could fail to be stirred by the rhythms and melodies of thousands of poetry lovers marching down the streets of our cities chanting in unison:
Death To America!
Death to the Great Satan!
Death To Israel!
Death to the Little Satan!
And naturally, as our Palestinian national culture has exploded onto the world stage (so to speak) and now has come to embody a more mature wisdom and calm that anyone can plainly see in the conduct of public life in Palestine, the appreciation for the use of language to the fullest extent of purity of purpose, clarity of vision, subtle nuance, harmonic overtone, mellifluous allusions have likewise matured and deepened. All this inspires a linguistic heart such as mine to sing!
So, in the service of creating a discourse for which the expression of the yearning for peace and brotherly love are the ultimate fulfillment, and for which Palestinian society is universally known, I have compiled a short, though naturally far-from-complete, list of quotations from notable Palestinian political and devout religious leaders — almost all of whose salaries are paid by Palestinian governing bodies, and whose money is therefore donated by European and American governments, and thus by you, the taxpayers — SHUKRAN! — , who yearn for nothing more than a Jew-free country living in peace and harmony, so that we can return to our first love: reading and reciting beautiful poetry.
I must ask your forbearance, for many of these statements inevitably lose a bit of their inherent beauty and majesty in translation. Furthermore, it is far from easy to compile such a list, the more for what must be omitted than for what may be included, there being such a plethora of rich material. Please consider mine but a meager offering, a beginning, and, more importantly, a small contribution to the dream of Peace in Our Time.
In honor of our grand poetic tradition, I must begin with a venerable work, already cited this week at FrontPage Magazine:
But the winner of our annual Helen Thomas Award for Poetry must go to the eloquent Dear Leader:
Dr. Yasser Dasmabebi holds the Edward Said-Noam Chomsky Linguistics Chair at Abdul Abulbul Amir University in Cairo.
"'Orientalism' For Dummies" appeared November 3, 2011 in Front Page
Magazine
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/03/
orientalism-for-dummies/
The glossary is taken from the "Guide For The Perplexed"
Oct 26th, 2011 Front Page Magazine
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/26/
guide-for-the-perplexed
"Peace in Our Time" appeared November 15, 2011 in Front Page
Magazine
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/15/
peace-in-our-time/
END NOTE:
Special appreciation for the work of the REAL LINGUISTS at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI.org). MEMRI translators bring to light pronouncements of officials and media not only from the original Arabic, but also from Farsi, Urdu, Turkish, Pashti and other languages. Their work illuminates that which the leaders and media of the Muslem world are actually saying to one another and to their people in their own languages as opposed to that which they are mumbling to us in English, and that which our major media, for whatever their motives, are and are not reporting to us!
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