Syria

Monday, February 07, 2011

I

I've been to Syria too regularly. Last time was 2 or 3 years ago, and first time was like 16 or 18 years ago. My awareness has changed dramatically. However the issues there hasn’t changed, they still suffering, poverty, children labor, secret police potency, poor infrastructure, and human rights appreciation. Many issues had to be addressed during the few next days, that’s base on my observations.  

There is a huge amount of emotions which may appear over the surface when I arrive.

Eye Witness

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Last night was first of its kind for me in Riyadh. I had spent all my night from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. in AlTahleea Street. Also, I had a great company with a good guy. I’ve seen closely how mad the crews can go. It’s like Egypt any way, but for the sake of self-expressing and having fun, Saudi youth can do everything.

I’m going to describe two separated dilemma, yet they are very connected: religious police, and girls. The interaction between them is just like Tom & Jerry. The great haunting between those oppose teams is infinite. It may have started when religious people for their surprised realize females don’t have the gear they have. They had searched deeply for the missing piece in the female anatomy. Since they couldn’t find, they announced the war against the different gender.

First thing I could witness is the process of dating in a coffee shop. The car parked for almost 10 minutes. Then a guy left the car, followed, after one or two minutes gap, by a girl from the same car. The guy was moving slowly, he picked up his phone like making a phone call. The girl was just after him, exposing a part of her breast from her Abiya, and also trying to make a phone call. For any one, they would look without any connection. They entered the family section of the coffee shop. After like 13 or 15 minutes, which are enough time for a male orgasm process, they had left and walking next to each other.
Thanks to medical school, it taught me how to observe. Thanks for the community, it taught them how to hide and date. Also, the religious police, they are the secret beneath the hide and seek play. When I described the suppression of id, I couldn’t imagine I may witness the result very closely like this. People are horny, gosh; you don’t know how horny they are.

Religious police didn’t catch the guilty people. However guilt concept is very broad for those crazy long bread men. They were scouting and patrolling all over the street. Three jeep cars for them were distributed near the mall, the beautiful girls’ restaurant, and one like special units car. The situation was very tense, the street is very congested, boys and girls are very where, and the religious police is just hunting them down. Until, one car for those police back reared a car. An Indian driver left the car to call the police. But directly two religious police men left their cars, approached the poor driver, hit him, and drag him to their jeep. I missed what happened next, but a lot of guys gathered there. The regular police men were there doing nothing. Eventually, the jeep left the site.

I couldn’t realize how thrilled Riyadh can be in weekends after mid night. I should repeat the experience, as this was my first close encounter with religious police, and the young people madness. Now, I’m in my way to Syria. I plan but not promise to publish on daily basis.

P.S: this was supposed to be published Friday night or Saturday morning. But it's really hard to find internet access in Syria. Also, they require an ID.. 

Hands in Pocket

Friday, February 04, 2011

Knowledge can’t be gained without philosophical methods. Otherwise, all what we do is just memorizing and repeating like parrots. Also, nations can’t improve without knowledge. So, philosophy is the only way for nations to progress and educate. What I just used is Aristotle’s logic.

I've been raised in an environment where there is a wide gap between social classes. Belonging to a high intermediate family class in the middle of poor and middle class families was very strange, as my class represent, naturally, very few people. I have to admit that I acted in my teenager age as an arrogant ass who doesn't give a shit about people. To tell the truth, I made an advantage of my social classes bullying on other students in school. The shock which made me realize my reality is discovering higher classes. For my surprise, I am nothing in the scale of Saudi social classes. This variation is so important for me, as I thought I was on the top of the world. In addition, I could notice and realize its meaning everywhere. Most significantly, the social classes’ gap is very wide.

I always enjoy overhearing people talking; in bus, hospital, coffee shops, or anywhere else. I want to know what is up in their little minds. And reinforce my idea regarding groups’ variation. Some of them complain, most of them do so, because the judge is your enemy. However, when they have nothing to complain about, they start to have a fun. The fun concept may fluctuate from football, cars, girls, to nothing else as far as I could notice. Maybe sometimes there is an intellectual talk pooped up in the middle of the conversation. Nevertheless, most of these intellectuals are ugly and freaky mutations. The orientation is always defending believes by attacking others, not seeking or understanding a new opinion..

You don’t expect people to get rid from the anger status as they can’t fulfill their essential needs. Also, as they have no time to spare in education or enlightenment, they are ignorant. Anger and ignorance are the 2 main pillars in the Saudi community. I can claim that all directions, lobbies, sects, and orientations in community can’t jump this fence. Until we provide people with food and education, please don’t expect to fancy any dialog enriched with reason.

There’s a balance between needs and education. As necessities are more fulfilled, you expect people to be more educated. Also, as people are more educated, you expect them to demand their needs persistently. Uneducated community may not know its needs, or it spends all the time to gain the prerequisites. The lag in Saudi Arabia is the unfair distribution for wealth, and impaired education system, beside many other issues like high unemployment rate. The result is variation in the expectation regarding the sufficiency of both needs and education. It’s very complex, but it can be easier when it came to Tunis, where educated people became aware of their rights, and they demanded it.

Nevertheless of the complex ignorance of our needs and knowledge in Saudi Arabia, people are in an anger status. I can understand when an individual spent all school grades in private institute, that one didn’t meet people who can’t effort, say 35k per year, to educate their children in private schools.

When I practiced anesthesia, last summer, a technician approached me to critique and object. One component of his speech, long one, was keeping my hands inside my pocket all the times. I don’t want to show arrogance but I’m over ranking him. He’s a damn horny operator from somewhere lost in the middle of the lost desert. And all he could do is coming to advise me. With all sorrow, he couldn’t understand the wisdom in keeping my hands in pocket. If he had kept his hands in his pocket, he wouldn’t stick them in someone else’s pockets.

What I want to propose is to help people, inside my field of knowledge. Meanwhile, keep your hands in your pocket instead of fighting and hitting others. Hands in pocket is secular, in sense they keep their beliefs in their pocket, and don’t label or judge people based on theirs attitudes. The concept of hands in pocket is we start with what people need first the most, and then move to another step. Please, we don’t want to interfere with people religious believes, we have much major issues.

First, I’m really afraid of poverty and wide gap between social classes. Poverty can be minimized effectively by good jobs. To find good jobs, we need good education. And education is the main pillar for all of our troubles. If we could only establish a system, believes in specialization and philosophy, to teach young people to promote trust in one self, and respect the others, then we would finish a huge step in our community milestone.

Finally, we can achieve the specialization idea, by education, which by itself would widen the casual person horizons. As a consequence, one person doesn’t need another to speak on one behalf’s. Also, that would minimize the influence of others, like religious men, outside their own area of specialty. In the end, everybody keep their hands in pocket, doing only what they are meant to do, saving the effort of messing in others’ pocket.