Month: June 2010

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When it comes to torture, the victim is the only eyewitness,Khaled Said was a lively 28 year old bright young man who loved rap music and video games; and like thousands of young Egyptians who gave up on life in Egypt, was working to leave for America to join his brothers before him. On June 6, Mr. Said was sitting at his favorite cyber café, two plainclothes security stormed the cafe where, they started harassing everyone inside for no apparent reason. Mr. Said who was known for his gentleness and kindness, made a fatal mistake, that most Egyptians avoid these days, he protested the security police disproportional harsh treatment to the café patrons, according to eyewitness, the police security dragged Mr. Said , severely beaten him and repeatedly smashed his head against the café marvel counter, the police security then took Mr. Said and drove away. A few hours later Mr. Said body was found abounded on the street in front of the same cyber café where Mr. Said loved to spend his time. A bystander took one picture of Mr. Said battered face and circulated it all over the internet and social networks. The image of the massive damages of Mr. Said face was so shocking even to most Egyptians who had been accustomed to police brutality for more than 60 years. The gruesome image of Mr. Said broken scull, blue skin deep scars and damaged teeth was juxtaposition along with an old picture of Mr. Said handsome face, this disturbing contrast showed the undeniable evidence of the brutality of the beaten of Mr. Said. The Egyptian official denied the torture and ridiculously claimed that these was a result of performing an attubosy a few hours after his death due to falling on the café steps trying to escape; the Egyptian security known for using attubosy as a cover up of their insidious violence and torture against helpless innocent Egyptians. Thanks to digital cameras, millions of people in Egypt and around the world instantly saw the gruesome image of the young Khaled Said face on June 6. The impressive delivery speed of the internet that relayed what happened to Mr. Said in his favorite cyber café, those images of Mr. Said damaged face were still only snapshots-pictures that are devoid of the context that only human eyes and minds can record and convey. Mr. Said died in the custody of Egyptian security police, however what really happened to Mr. Said that day we will never know; our ability to know the true vanished with Mr. Saee last breath and was silenced forever; The police securities were the judges, jurors and the executioners. All we know of what happened to him that day is reduced only to a one camera image of his damaged face telling a tragic story of brutal abuse but not the whole story. Before digital camera and the internet, in torture, the victim in most cases is the only eyewitness. For me, there wasn’t any camera in the Egyptian torture chamber, and after so many years the deep physical and emotional pain and its tragic details remain vivid in my memory . When I was a youngster growing up in Egypt in the sixties, the daily anti-government protesters were in the streets. I was too young to grasp the serious political implication of the event. Like most teens students, I was glad that classes were canceled that day. Thousands of students poured into the streets all over Cairo, I was rounded up by the Egyptian secret police (The Mukhabarat), who were zealously trying to fill their daily quota of random arrests. I was lined up with common criminals. A tall handsome police officer standing at the front started shouting the worst kind of profanities at us, his harsh words quickly extended to our families and parents. Without thinking and in a fearful voice I mumbled, “you can curs all you want, but not my parent.” Unfortunately, the officer who is not accustomed to any challenge resented my soft protest; what happened after that has shattered my innocence forever. The angry policeman stopped his verbal abuse and without looking at me, he ordered one of his guards to take me away to -as he commanded- “the room.” The guard knew exactly where to take me; inside the prison, it was a small dark smelly windowless cold room, a godless room stripped out of any human sign, the dark silence in the room seemed as if it has witnessed lots of broken innocent souls. Shortly, the policeman entered the room, where he calmly and without uttering a word or acknowledging my presence, closed the door, picked up a big riot stick and started hitting me savagely and indiscriminately. I stood helplessly overwhelmed by the officer’s outrage; the severity of the beating escalated, until my skin start peeling off my body before my own eyes. I lost my feeling and any connection to my battered body; my confusing thoughts were trapped in my broken head. I wasn’t trying to be a hero, I couldn’t muster any words, I couldn’t scream or resist. I couldn’t understand the officer excessive beaten, but I knew he had an absolute power to do to me whatever he wishes in that room. He didn’t ask about my name, he never looked me in the eyes, he never explained my crime. I was reduced to a nameless, faceless object, as I stood motionless and void of any rights or expression. I wasn’t the usual suspect — a communist, a Jihadist or a government agitator. This wasn’t a national security issue, it was personal insecurity issue; The officer, unaccustomed to the slightest challenge, needed to break my will. I was too frail to beg for mercy, he needed a complete conquest. My silence was deafening, and as the officer grew more infuriated, he started getting more creative in his abuse. His relentless physical torture made his early verbal profanity seem like a friendly exchange. There is nothing more humiliating than unjust abuse where you can’t resist or retaliate, his savage hitting destroyed my ability to express my pain. After what seemed like an eternity, the beating suddenly stopped, and without saying a word, the officer stormed out of the torture room, he couldn’t stay and face his unbroken victim. I found myself standing alone licking my own wounds, only to realize for the first time that the guard who brought me to the room was still there; he was standing in the corner wiping his tears. His display of sadness brought a much-needed touch of humanity to the cold room. I often wondered how my brief confrontation with this officer could generate so much fury against a helpless young boy. He was not following any orders; he was the whole chain of command. I now realize we were both victims. I was a victim of unjust violence and abuse. He was a victim of his sadistic obsession with violence and his intoxication with power. I was physically paralyzed for weeks. He was morally paralyzed for life. There wasn’t any digital camera to tell what happened inside that room that day; all these years, my own memory has had to carry what no camera could ever convey.
Ahmed Tharwat
Sincerely

Ahmed Tharwat/ Host BelAhdan…
Freelancer/ Foreign Press Fixer
www.belahdan.com
http://www.facebook.com/ahmediatv
a show with an accent for those
without one, airs on Public TV Saturdays at 10:30pm
www.Belahdan.com
My Blog at
www.ahmedia.com

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The American people have seen enough Muslims behaving badly all over the world; Saddam, Ghdaffy, Assad, Ossam, Alsadar, Zarqawi, Nidal and with the Bush administration illusive crusade on terrorism; this list gets longer by the day. American people in a dire need to see some reasonable Muslim, please meet my dad.
My father was a small petite man, with a big nose and sharp piercing small eyes; he wasn’t a heavy-handed, intimidating father figure. However, he believed that to survive raising a large family of 10 on $7 monthly salary, you needed to be vigilant in reconstructing our family values.
First, to put our house in order, he gave us character-based nicknames; our original Arabic names had been either those of a prophet or a servant of God, Muhammed, Ahmed, Abdelraffe, Aabdellnasser, Abdelaal, etc… didn’t reflect who we really are, so I became the Sursarah, the small cockroach; my mom was Walad, one of the boys; the skinny one was Feseekhah, dried fish; the enigmatic one was Brovdaah (I still have no idea what it means); the oldest was Abul-ossi, the father of sticks; then, the comfort-seeker was Oomdah, the mayor; the youngest was Hando’ah, the cutie; and my only sister was Al-arousah, the beautiful bride.
He wasn’t a religious zealous man; he was what you could call a moral relativist. He would quietly pray the mandatory five daily prayers without lecturing us. He would tell us biblical stories to spread his moral ploys; each story would have a disguise message made to shape our outlook on life. The prophet said: to sleep hungry is to be merry, he would say when one asked for late meal. “The Hebrew people got lost in Sinai for 40 years, you know” he reminds us when we drifted to our ways, and if you don’t listen to his advise he would say “Well suite yourself but remember; Noah’s son didn’t make it ” .
He was a frugal man; to my dad, consumption was an evil state of depletion. Nothing terrified him more than one of us breaking into the kitchen to snack before mealtime. It was a violation of house golden rules. He even developed a home security sound-code alert system reflecting the level of threat to any domestic consumption around the house. Regardless of where he was, he managed to monitor and sense what was going on in our kitchen even in his sleep. Clearing his throat was a special warning alarm to alert us to his level of annoyance. He would clear his throat once if you broke into the kitchen, twice, for opening the refrigerator, and three “ahems” meant don’t touch that cold watermelon.
A conservationist before it became fashionable; He would walk around the house turning off radios, stoves, electricity and shut windows— as his daily mission to defeat ominous waste.
Reusing old stuff around the house for him was a divine resurrection ritual. Eating questionable leftover food was his small triumph over the tyrant of the decaying process. Sending the mail in used envelopes was his personal signature, reusing old batteries even for just a few minutes was magical, and for him, nothing was ever too precious for him to be wrapped in scraps of old newspaper.
My dad was an average man who never wanted to be a hero, he passed away a few years back and finally is resting in a divine place where there isn’t much to do or to say— the way he always wanted, god bless you dad.

Ahmed Tharwat
Producer/Host of the Arab American TV Show Belahdan
Minnetonka, MN

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World Cup, a world of differences ..
Every four years, June becomes a different month, a month of magic around the world. It’s FIFA World Cup time! For most of the world, football is the only game in town, expect in the U.S. Football (Soccer) has been around of other countries for hundreds of years compared to 10 years here in the United States,” said English native Neil Holloway. The proper name of what most the world call “football” and the Americans call “soccer” is association football. Originated in England the word “soccer” comes from an alteration of “assoc.”, which is an abbreviation of “association football” . it was customary for British university students in the 1880s to abbreviate any word and then add on ‘er’ or ‘ers’ to it (so breakfast became brekkers, or rugby became ruggers). Now football allover the world is as a religion and a divine affairs, where fans in Muslims countries postpone their daily prayers to after the game, god can wait, but goals won’t.. Around the world, people will take a break from local and international politicos and hostilities, and get into the politics and hostilities of football, at work, at home, coffee shops, pups, and their offices, people around the world will be glued to their TV following the game. More than 26 billion watched 2006 world cup, a Football fans in the US will get a kick out of football , and they get patriotic for other than memorial day. They will be switching from the fair and balance FoxNews, to Foxsoccer, thousands of people from all over the world will be in the stands in cities across South Africa watching the biggest sporting event on the planet under the sound of Vuvuzela. Which has become as big of an event as freeing the great Nelson Medal. World leaders exchange jabs and are launching their national campaigns to get in the game, with millions of fans all over the world glued to their TVs watching the one-month drama unfolding everyday–live and simultaneously.
The World Cup phenomenon is so huge that around the world, life will stand still, most other sports activities postponed or cancelled during the four weeks FIFA World Cup games. Countries declare national holidays when their team plays a World Cup Game. A labor union organizer in England even advised its members on the different ways to call in sick during the games. Football ‘fanatics’ will change their daily life and meeting schedules, and their social life will be rearranged around the games. As you watch the colorful fans with their faces painted like their national flags and blowing their traditional vulvuzela enjoying the game, you can get a glimpse of the huge impact of these games. The FIFA World Cup–where 32 countries from all over the world use their best resources to compete on the football field and under the same rules. The FIFA World Cup extravaganza—it comes thundering as if it is a World war, a war that is fought by 22 players armed only with the shirt on their backs, without hardly any equipment, no helmets or sticks. It is a game about life drama and disappointments , most of attacks end up foiled and goals not achieved, it teach more about reality in life, it is a civilized sport where the consequence of violence, and not violence itself, is glorified. Players seem to exaggerate their injuries on the field as to condemn violence and not to condone it. It’s a game where small countries like Slovenia, Slovakia, South African, Chile, or Algeria can challenge their former colonial powerhouse like Russia, England, Netherlands, Franc and Spain without fear of retaliation or invasion. A chance as the Atlantic online magazine stated; “This year’s postcolonial matchups include the U.S. versus the UK, Portugal versus Brazil, and Spain versus almost everybody else”. What is so different about the FIFA world cup games than our local games, it is not all about winning, it is about representing your country, each national team style of playing represents its own culture on the field, The direct organized English style, the defensive Italian style, the obnoxious eccentric style of Franc and the creative strength of African style, and Brazilian samba football that everyone around the world enjoy and admire., Franklin Foer’s 2004 book how soccer explains the world, describes the logic of Nigerian footballers on the pitch: “They had ingenuity that could make a bland Eastern Bloc team look downright continental.” a real clash of cultures where countries can compete on a field that is just and fair, to compete in a frontier where Americans do not, and cannot, yet dominate. The World Cup where countries can’t outsource their national bride, every four years everything is put on the line.
The American Football culture, where oversized, over coached and over equipped players, our modern gladiators are fighting off to the death over enemies territories. ‘world’ football culture is creative, complex, multi-faceted, and inclusive. It is not so much about occupation of territory; it is about shifting positions, maneuvering and running a series of attacks and retreats, winning without physical elimination. World football is about shifting from defense to offense with such fluidity, that you need to understand not just your skills and capabilities, but at the same time avoiding the opponent’s strengths. While American Football has always been the American way of inviting people from all over the world to the American way, World’ football invites people from all over the world to be a football fan. G. Gordon Liddy explained why he hats world football “Whatever happened to American exceptionalism?” David Brook calls this American parochialism, we just don’t want to participate in world culture. World football is not all about winning; it is about the art of playing the beautiful game.
We die-hard World Cup fans are here in the U.S., seem lonely and overlooked, we are the real sleeper cells, but we’re watching, or taping, cheering, holding our breath, having our own tea parties cursing through every game that is played. We can identify Drogba, Rooney, and Kaka as well as Messi, Milito and Maicon. But as ‘world’ football fans, living in isolation, we can’t chat about the last game at the water cooler, find much coverage in the local paper, or even listen to the national news for updates. Although that the American national team made it to the world cup this year, a new Rasmussent reports stated that only 19% of Americans will follow the World Cup this year! And some countries sitting out this year would die for a chance—countries like Russia, Egypt, Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic who have to watch T.V. like everyone else. And even though in the U.S., our beloved football is overlooked and left out of the national ‘pastimes.’ We “tifosos’ are looked at as un-American, treated like outsiders, we maybe looked at as suspects and in some states as a bit like illegal immigrants.

Ahmed Tharwat/ Host Arab American TV show
BelAhdan…
www.belahdan.com
http://www.facebook.com/ahmediatv
a show with an accent for those
without one,
airs on Public TV Saturdays at 10:30pm
www.Belahdan.com
My Blog at
www.ahmedia.com