Short Stories

When comparing the two short stories, I personally liked The Lawsuit better. The younger wife seemed to resemble someone like a step mother and I thought it was interesting to see how she brought the lawsuit upon her own family. The situation in the story really reminded me of step families within our own county. One problem that I did have with the story was how dramatic it seemed. However it was a short story so I guess a lot had to be included in it to make it complete. I also would have liked to see what the verdict would have been in the case.
The second story, A Long-Term Plan, was filled with irony. A man in his 70’s was so use to using other people for their wealth, especially his mother’s, becomes an overnight millionaire and after making plans for what he is going to do with his money, he slips into a food coma. He had lived his whole life doing absolutely nothing to benefit others. Karma? Both stories by Naguib Mahfouz were interesting.

Gold Dust

At the heart of Gold Dust is the relationship between Ukhayyad, son of a tribal chieftain, and his beloved piebald thoroughbred Mahri camel. The relationship is both a physical interdependency and a spiritual communion. At times the camel seems to be a projection of Ukhayyad.
A tribal sheikh tells Ukhayyad:
"We always say that the Mahri is the mirror of his rider. If you want to stare into the rider and see what lies hidden within, look to his mount, his thoroughbred . . . Whoever owns a Mahri like this piebald will never complain for want of noble values."
Ukhayyad would do anything for his camel and we witness this when he almost dies himself when trying to cure the camel’s mange: "Flesh met flesh, blood mixed with blood. In the past they had been merely friends. Today, they had been joined by a much stronger tie."
Ukhayyad has an innocence about him. He does not understand all the rules of the desert culture and tends to be blind to the deviousness of others. His father had wanted him to marry his first cousin so that Ukhayyad rather than one of his father's nephews would inherit leadership of the tribe. But Ukhayaad married instead the beautiful songstress Ayur, a refugee from the drought-stricken south. His father's curse "Marry her and be damned!" lies like a shadow over him. Ukhayyad also sees himself to be cursed because he failed to keep his promise to sacrifice a fat camel at the desert shrine of the ancients where he had prayed for his camel's recovery from mange.
The novel is set at a time when life for the desert dwellers is precarious. In the north there is fighting with the Italians while in the south there is severe famine (at one point a starving Ukayyad cooks and eats his leather sandal). Ukhayyad's alienation from his tribe may seem like freedom, but it leaves him vulnerable to exploitation.
When Ayur's rich trader relative Dudu arrives from the south, Ukhayyad is manipulated into pawning his camel to him. Dudu then makes the return of the skinny and deteriorating camel to Ukhayyad conditional on his divorcing Ayur who, Ukhayyad learns, Dudu had wanted to marry himself.
Matters escalate and Ukhayyad is virtually forced by the shame of his circumstances into becoming a vengeful murderer.
The group in Tuesday’s class did an excellent job getting us to really take a deep look inside the details of this book. I hadn’t really thought much of the book until the group had us answer specific questions to the plot. In general I thought the book was interesting. Not one of my favorites but a pretty good read.

Children Literature

Reading a children’s book now that I’m not a child has made me realize the underlying meanings of the story and how they are “secretly” portraying messages to the youth. It reminds me of when we discussed Aladdin in class and how someone can interpret so much from a work that was meant for a child. One thing I notice about the first book we read was that it played on the notion of sounds a lot. For example, the sound of the child’s own name became a sort of music. Color was obviously also used a lot but I feel that’s apparent in almost every children’s work.

The chores that the child did throughout the story, such as lugging around eight gallon barrels of oil, seemed like chores that should have been completed by someone of a much older age, however the age of the child is never specified so I just I can’t accurately make that assumption.

The idea of the secret throughout the story kept the reader’s attention. What could this secret be? Once you found out the secret it was sort of unsatisfying until you put yourself in the child’s shoes. Writing his own name seemed like the biggest accomplishment he has ever performed. We learn to write our names in pre-school/kindergarten; however for the child in the story, it was so out of his routine.

The publisher and the author of both books are Americans. When looking at the pictures in the story, you have to wonder if the pictures are accurate to life in modern day Cairo or if the view we received was a tourist edition. I might be jumping out of the box by saying this, but is this a depiction of Arab Land?

The books had two very separate realities depicted. The second story was a observation of a war torn society and the views of the little boy. In class a good comparison was made between the little boy’s sand castle and what was once his home.

I thought it was a good idea for the group to introduce Middle Eastern children’s literature to the class. It helps us look at the society as a whole, children included.

War in the Land of Egypt

I want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed the different perspectives of the characters in the novel. Each character was of different importance to the story yet they all seemed to be interrelated. I sympathized mostly with Masri even though he didn’t get his own chapter in the book. He was burden with the pain of his family and the corruption of the government. Although we didn’t hear directly from him, I found he held a majority of my attention. I believe that Masri not getting his own chapter is very symbolic. Masri didn’t receive a choice for a majority of the things that have happened to him in life.

As Ashley’s teacher pointed out, the novel was talking about how corrupt Egypt is and the small wars that are fought there every day by the people of Egypt against the government, higher officials, or mayors; not directly about the war. Speaking of Ashley’s professor, hearing about his stories straight from someone who experienced stuff that we have been reading about makes what is happening in the Middle East all the more real. The novels we have read have all been phenomenal and have gave us a new perspective of the Middle East but hearing it from Dr. Mughazy made the events we have learned that more realistic. It’s weird to think that although real people have experienced what the characters in A War in the Land of Egypt have experience, we still few their accounts as just stories.

Kalamazoo Islamic Center

Being truthfully honest, I never would have taken a trip to the Kalamazoo Islamic Center by myself so I was extremely happy that we went as a class. I was amazed at how the Imam seemed as if he could talk for days about his religion and what the KIC represents. It was really neat to hear a little about him as well. I was surprised to learn that in order to become an Imam, one of the tasks he had to complete was the memorization of the Koran. Not just reading it, but MEMORIZING it!

It's really cool to see that they're expanding the KIC too! They're adding in so many classrooms and a whole new social area which looks beautiful. The Mosque was way bigger than I expected. I also didn’t know that the Mosques owned many of the buildings around it. I was surprised to learn about the separate women and men entrances and how they pray in separate rooms. It made sense once the Imam put it into perspective.

The Imam made many connections between Christianity and Islam. He didn’t try and push his religion onto us. He just made us aware of what others believed in. I was surprised to see the religious tolerance the Imam possessed.

Going to the KIC was an amazing experience and I suggest that EVERYONE should go.

Info about Mosques

I’m excited to go to the Mosque tomorrow for class so I just wanted to do a little research on Mosques in America.
-A mosque is defined for the purpose of this Study to be an organization that holds Jum`ah Prayers (Friday Prayers) and other Islamic activities.
-Mosques are relatively young: 30% of all mosques were established in the 1990s and 32% were started in the 1980s.
-4/5 of mosques are located in a metropolitan (urban or suburban) area, most often a city neighborhood.
-At the average mosque, 33% of members are South Asian, 30% are African American, and a quarter 25% are Arab. More than 20% of mosques have full-time schools.
- Almost 70% of mosques provide some type of assistance for the needy.
-Mosques are not staffed well.
-The majority (55%) of mosques have no paid full-time staff. Only 10% have more than two paid staff.
In conclusion, Mosques are welcoming and generous. Their services are voluntary and they are non-judgmental.

An imam (Arabic: إمام plural ائمة A'immah‎, Persian: امام) is an Islamic leadership position, often the leader of a mosque and the community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads the prayer during Islamic gatherings. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have an Islamic question. In smaller communities an imam could be the community leader based on the community setting.

I hope that this gives a little more insight as to what a Mosque is!

I got my info from a document called :
The Mosque in America: A National PortraitA Report from the Mosque Study Project
and:
Wikipedia

The Road to Love...

The main objective of this film is to portray the identity issues that are not only faced my Middle Easterners, but by everyone. We clearly see that the main character, Karim is unsure as to sexuality. He begins a documentary/study that he claims is to just broaden his views in sociology, but we realize that his unconscious is leading the study. Karim is interested in knowing more about the aspects of homosexuality. He’s curious as to the background of it and its role in his culture. Karim doesn’t intend to leave his “girlfriend” for his lover, Farid. He doesn’t start the study as an excuse to “come out”. His unconscious mind reveals his underlying identity. The fact that the main language spoken was French alludes to sexuality discovery as a universal thing. This movie was an amazing choice by the Arab group. It shows that problems faced by many Americans are also faced by Middle Easterners. This movie is a great way to show the similarity between the American and Arabic society. Even issues such as sex before marriage were addressed in the film. Although I was a huge fan of the film, I did have a few points of dislike. One thing that I wasn’t a fan of was the impression of “associating with homosexuals makes you become homosexual”. I do not believe that fact what so ever and I’m not saying whatsoever that the movie was alluding to this; however it might be taken out of context and interpreted this way. I never realized how far back homosexuality in the Middle East was dated. Another thing that surprised me was the fact that sex between men was permitted before marriage in the past while sex with women before marriage was frowned upon. Without viewing this movie, things pertaining to homosexuality in the Middle East would have never crossed my mind. Again, great job and courage to Andrew and the rest of the Arab group for presenting a touchy yet informing subject.

"Don't be loyal to Oil"

The United States is completely dependent on the Middle East for petroleum. The Centcom (Central command center of the Middle East) mission is to protect the 711 billion barrels of oil (2/3 of world oil reserves) found in the main 5 oil producing countries in the Middle East. “The oil resources [of the Middle East] constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history” (U.S State Department memo August 1945). The U.S is in short supply of their oil reserves. Primarily this is because the U.S used 1/3 of its oil reserves during World War II. Power is related to oil. We know that the Middle East has such power and it’s intimidating. Our alliance with Saudi Arabia is a necessity. Many of our previous presidents have signed and establish doctrines which have been made to ensure our petroleum protection. The Bush administration even introduced weapons of mass destruction into the “petroleum power” scene. It's as if history is almost repeating it's self. Many elements behind the “petroleum power” surge are kept from the American public. When the Democracy is doing things in secrecy, how do we know if they’re doing the will of the people? This documentary is biased to all extent. It describes Americans as greedy and harsh. But is it creditable? Although he makes valid points, what is he leaving out? There are many extreme points and he backs them up with extreme visual images, but are these images relative? The author of this documentary is describing a fallacy. However is it really that crazy that we're fighting a war for oil? For power? Oil is everything in America. In conclusion: I'm more than confused and sorry this blog is somewhat random.