on the road to Baalbek part 3

My story about going to Baalbek is long and I don't know if I'll ever get around to telling it all. But I will give you some fragments. I have told you 2 parts, traveling towards the Qadesha Valley and visiting the church of our Lady in Ehden, but these too are truncated versions of my wonderful adventures. I have more to tell you about Ehden, but I will return to that at some date, but I've promised you other stories before, which are still outstanding.

When you leave Ehden and pass Hatchit (place of the best zaatar pies ever!) and Bscharre (Khalil Gibran's birth place) and the Cedars (the remnants of a once majestic forest that covered the entire land), the road becomes more desolate, with only wildflowers to greet you.
The snow on top of the mountain surprises you as you were sitting outside in Hatchit in short sleeves enjoying your zaatar pie and about 50k away in Tripoli it is so sweltering that that is the last place you would want to be in the afternoon. The vegetation changes dramatically before your eyes the higher you go. These green cushions are not comfy cushions but balls of hard thorns. I ran to touch them, and they surprised me. It seems they may be some sort of mountain thyme or savory. No wonder the zaatar pies are so delicious around here.
As you wind up the road to the top of Qurnat es Sawda, even the wildflowers fall behind. The air gets clearer and colder. You pull your hoodie on. The air feels fresh and invigorating. You feel clear headed. Quiet.
Finally, you get to the top of Qurnat es-Sawda, the highest mountain in Lebanon, about 3050 metres above sea level. When you look west, you look out towards the Mediterranean Sea. The wind is fierce here.
Sawda is a woman's name. Who she was, I don't know. I'm sure my brothers- and sister-in law told me, but I will have to ask them again. She is one of 3 majestic mountains, Kornet es-Sawda, the mighty goddess of the north, planted by the hand of God with those divine trees, our cedars says one story. Every time you go to a place in Lebanon you will hear a story about it. The next time you go you will hear another story. I will tell you on story about that stone building in another story.
When you turn to look east you will see the majestic Biqa/Bekaa Valley, which is where food is grown, as well as more lucrative crops in these times of the increasing push to neoliberal policies that promote in import of foreign foods from France and Germany. The Biqa Valley looks like a huge patchwork quilt of green, gold and red. It seems to go on forever.
From this point, the road begins to wind downwards. You have to cross the Biqa Valley to reach Baalbek, which is the highest point of land in the valley. It seems impossible to you that you will reach Baalbek in an hour or so because the distances appear vast and incomprehensible.
At the top of Qurnat as Sawda you begin to do crazy things. We all felt so invigorated that we were all jumping and running around. It has something to do with the air, the heavens surrounding you, the wind, the vault of the sky, the vast spaces in which you are between, and the sheer majestic moment of it all. You get drunk on just being there. Intoxicated. So you do all sorts of crazy things. I shouted to my husband, take a picture of me doing a Warrior Pose!

Canada requested to seize the Dea Sea Scrolls

Wall St. Journal classified ad June 1954

I've posted on the controversy of exhibiting the stolen Dead Sea Scrolls in Canada, while the ROM exhibit was here (it closes tomorrow) and before it opened (and for offering my perspective my blog was accused by a hasbara-ite of being a "hate site". I've heard worse. Sticks and stones....).

Today I read that Jordan asks Canada to seize stolen artifacts:

"Bethlehem - Ma’an/Agencies - Canada was asked to take custody of a series of scrolls and parchment fragments uncovered in the West Bank and currently on loan to Toronto from the Israel Antiquities Authority. The ancient artifacts were seized from an East Jerusalem museum in 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and illegally annexed Jerusalem. Since the artifacts were uncovered while the area was under Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967, it is the Jordanian government that requested Canada step in and protect the artifacts.

Jordanian officials summoned the Canadian chargé d'affaires in Amman in late December, the Toronto daily newspaper the Globe and Mail reported. According to the Canadian paper, Jordan cited the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories. On that basis, Jordan asked that Canada keep the scrolls until the international court can determine their rightful owner.

.... Canada, as a signatory of the cited Hague convention, is legally required “to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory. This shall either be effected automatically upon the importation of the property or, failing this, at the request of the authorities of that territory.”

Now, you might be surprised to learn -- like I was, that Israel does not claim to own the scrolls! Israel acts as their "custodian" and, states an Israel Antiquities Authority spokesperson, "as such, we have a right to exhibit them and to conserve them” and that "the short-term, temporary exhibition of scrolls in another country does not constitute 'exportation' under the Hague Convention."

I wonder why the media has not made this DISPUTED OWNERSHIP explicit? Why has not the state of Israel made this DISPUTED OWNERSHIP more apparent? Whose interest does this serve? Perhaps that hasbara-ite who claimed I was a hate mongerer ought to know that his country built on stolen land does not own the stolen scrolls.

The Globe and Mail article states that "Even if Canada ignores the request, it will make other countries think twice before accepting the controversial exhibit." I hope so. It concludes by saying that this seizure is unlikely to happen. I guess so--because we have no Parliament in session!

Our Prime Minister has prorogued our government until March--this means they don't have to take any action on anything until then. This is outrageous. It means that Parliament is suspended, which means that the Conservative government representatives are not answerable to any questions by opposition parties--or anyone else! So, the government doesn't have to answer to the recent charges of the torture of Afghan detainees, to climate change, to any controversies that develop from the Winter Olympics, or to Jordan's request for Canada to seize the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The only action the Conservative government is taking is to load the Senate with their cronies and to take home paychecks without doing any work! Talk about welfare cheats. Why should they get paid for doing squat? Canadians should be furious about this--Harper is not accountable to anyone until March 3rd. This is democracy?

make this spirit soar

yesterday out my window

Prayer Before Work

Great one, austere
By whose intent the distant star
Holds its course clear,
Now make this spirit soar--
Give it that ease.

~ from a poem by May Sarton

today out my window

Well, if one cannot end the year on a cheery note, one can start the year on a cheery note. Best to do so before starting work. Reading--or writing--poetry is a nice way to remember one's blessings. When I came down the stairs and looked out the front door window to see how much frost is on the panes of the windows of the porch (the more frost, the colder the day), I saw them in their usual spot. A pair of neighbourhood crows that live in my second-door neighbour's spruce trees come out each cold morning to sit in the sun on my next-door neighbour's old plum tree. It is -21 this morning with a windchill of -30 says Weathernetwork on my computer. But I knew that from the crows.

Mildred or whatever her name was

Christian crusaders throwing heads of Muslims over ramparts

I told myself last night that my last post for 2009 must be positive. No more Debbie Downer. But then I didn't expect to turn on the radio and listen to The Current on cbc, like I often do, only to hear a racist rant. I listen to The Current, one of the few shows in Canada that actually addresses racism, not expecting to hear racism. The commentator, Kevin Sylvester, who was filling in for Anna Maria Tremonti, was highlighting some of the listener responses to an earlier show on racial profiling. Supposedly this removes him from commenting on the comments?

An old white woman from Calgary had phoned in. Her name may have been Myrtle or Mildred. Her voice was shrill. Her message was to bring racial profiling on. In fact, she repeated it a few times in a loud voice, Bring it on! Bring it on! Bring it on! Bring racial profiling on! Old white women or old men with white hair don't threaten to blow up planes, she reasoned, so why should we be racially profiled? Profile those with brown faces.

The guist of her message was that it is ok to racially profile brown skinned people and those with Muslim sounding names. Her rant came on right after another commenter, Muslim Canadian Tarek Fatah, one of the most conflicted Muslim Canadians who always gets put into the spotlight as spokesman yet who, as Wahida Valiante, vice-chair and national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress (which Fatah founded), told the Globe and Mail, "Tarek Fatah's views are diametrically opposed to most Muslims." So, what did Fatah have to say about racial profiling? He commented favorably on yes! racial profiling of Muslims and brown skinned people. I'm all for it.

How pathetic. The authentic Other speaks the neocolonial message. What could be better than that? What could be better for bolstering racism than the brown skinned supporting it themselves?

On the last day of the year, on the last day of the decade, this is what I had to hear? Support for racial profiling? Blatant ignorant racism on so-called progressive Canadian radio? The depths of racism and ignorance that Canadians have sunk into shows no end in sight; indeed, racism is increasing and ignorance is getting louder and more confident. Well, why not?

Why not the average Canadian spout racism when government representatives and media lead the way? We have government officials who out-and-out support racial profiling of groups -- the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Kenney, leading the pack, no less, as well as a Prime Minister who favors the exclusive racism of Israel, war on poor brown-skinned people in Afghanistan, denies the there was ever colonialism in Canada (hence wiping out the historical state oppression and dispossession of Indigenous peoples and its continuance) among other human rights injustices.

Mildred or Myrtle, you should be reminded that while it is true that old white ladies and old white men with white hair are not threatening to blow up planes, it is old white men with white hair and white ladies who went into the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, India, North America, South America, Central America, Australia and on and on to exploit, steal, rape, plunder, kill, pillage, maim, and destroy communities, peoples, animals, and habitats in the name of God and imperialism and civilization.

violence and non-violence

Palestinian Woman. artist Shepard Fairey.

"On Saturday, Israeli forces entered Nablus for the first time in several months for one of the bloodiest operations in the city in over a year. The homes of three Fatah members - allegedly involved in the death of a settler the previous Wednesday - were broken into. Relatives in the homes said Israeli soldiers shot the three men at close range. One man was shot in bed with his seven-month pregnant wife, a second was shot standing beside his 16-year-old cousin, and a third was taken into the yard of his home and executed."

Ma'an image. Back to mud in Gaza.

"The UN relief agency UNRWA said on Tuesday that Gaza had been “bombed back, not to the Stone Age, but to the mud age,” because the agency was reduced to building houses out of mud due to Israel’s ban on construction materials entering the Strip."

Children of the Intifada. Pen and Ink Drawing by Abdel Rahman al-Mozayen, 1988

When will it be our time? asks Mustafa Barghouthi:

"A new generation of Palestinian leaders is attempting to speak to the world in the language of a nonviolent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, precisely as Martin Luther King Jr and thousands of African-Americans did with the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s. We are equally right to use the tactic to advance our rights. The same world that rejects all use of Palestinian violence, even clear self-defense, surely ought not begrudge us the nonviolence employed by men such as King and Gandhi."