Saturday, May 30, 2009

Arabic Course 101

I finally got into learning about the roots of Arabic words. All the other previous grammar was hard, but boring. This is hard, but exciting!

There is one word that wraps up what the Arabic language is like:
القاموس (al-kamuus), which means "dictionary".... but it also means "ocean" because it comes from the root قمس (kamasa) which means "to immerse, to soak, to steep". My mind is just blown away. What an amazing language.

Also, to say "I feel lonely", you can say "أشعر بالوحيدة " (ash'ur bil-wahiida). أشعر comes from the root شعر and means "to know, to feel, to perceive" (among other meanings). الشُعور (as-shu'uur) means "knowledge or perception".

and مشترك (mushtarak) means "collective, combined, or common"....

Stay with me...

If you put them together, you get: الشعر المشترك (as-shu'uur al-mushtarak), which literally means, "perception or knowledge of the collective" = "SOLIDARITY".... oh shitttttttt!!!!

And coming from the same root as مشترك (which is شرك , or "to share, participate, associate"), you have the word اشتراكية , which means.... drum roll... "socialism".

Well, I think that's the same root in English, so that isn't so exciting. Who said socialism was exciting anyways??

Maybe anarchy...

Thursday, May 28, 2009

New Blog Added to List

Hey everyone,

I just added a new blog, called 3arabawy (don't pronounce the "3" please, it is standing in for a letter that we don't have in English). Pretty good, written by an Egyptian Marxist, mostly in English. Finally, some different thinking. There is a good photographic essay about the Mahalla Intifada, the April 6th, 2008, uprising which started in the burb of Mahalla (close to Alex) and touched of a general strike across the country for higher wages... check it out here.

Also recently here in Alexandria, a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood folks were arrested after Egypt claimed that Hezbollah was infiltrating Egypt and getting arms to Gaza through Egypt. Unfortunately, I can't follow the news so well, and no one I know talks about these things, so I am pretty much in the dark until everything is over. Damn.

The author of the 3arabawy blog, Hossam Al-Hamalawy, also says that recently a lot of activists and citizens have been thrown out of their fourth floor residences by police officers. I live on the fourth floor. Shit.

Two bad words in one blog.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Sri Lanka, déjà vu...

Since before the "victory" over the Tigers in Sri Lanka, I've been feeling constantly nauseated with the amount of pro-military propaganda that is being spread all over the world. People who talked about peace before decided to throw all that talk away and salute the Sri Lankan flag and bend over to the Sri Lankan military.

But we all know that in times of crises, people act strange and usually are overcome by the desire to find a quick solution. I'm not going to get into an analysis of which side was right here. What I do find troubling is how Sri Lanka was able to ignore the demands of the UN (hypocritical though the UN may be) and simply continue blasting away. The government won, but at a huge human cost.

Of course, Obama afterwards sent congratulations to Rajapakse and gang. It's a clear message that, "Shit, it was a little uncomfortable having all that blood on our hands, but good job! You did what we're trying to do!" I imagine that the US and others are preparing their speeches for Pakistan, lamenting the impending humanitarian catastrophe, but openly funding the war and secretly hoping that the Swat would just sink into the Earth.

What if Uribe decided to just blow up the entire southern third of Colombia? Or the world decided that piracy in Somalia was costing more to their economies that dropping a nuclear bomb on Puntland? Actually, it seems that now Somalia is asking for help to destroy Al-Shabaab, who is about to overtake the country. Doesn't it seem like Obama is "suddenly" running out of patience with North Korea? It just seems like we've headed down the wrong road, and that under the Bush-Obama presidency, the power of the sword will overcome the power of the pen.

Speaking of Obama's two-facedness, check out Carmen Andrea Rivera interviewing John Lindsay-Poland (yeah for people with three names!) about the fine-tuning of Plan Colombia on KPFA: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/51147 (starting at minute 15).

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Close the SOA... in Arabic!



Since someone said that my last three entries have been sort of childish, I'll write a more serious entry. This is a really bad upload (from a mobile phone... not mine, ok!) of my first presentation in Arabic... about the SOA! yeah!! The audience (5 people) was really interested and wanted to know more... maybe it's time to start translating the SOAW website into Arabic! ;)

Try to listen for the words "imperialism" (لأمبريالية) and "dictatorships" (الدكتاتوريات). hehe.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Earth First, Uranus Second

At the risk of sounding like an immature middle-schooler, I just wanted to copy the sign that is in the bathroom here at the Arabic Center. It's a sign about tips to protect the environment. Unfortunately, it has a picture of a roll of toilet paper and on the roll is written, "Keep the Earth Clean! It's Not Uranus!"

Haha. That's funny. I wonder if they know the meaning. Some cheeky student here must have made it.

It's also in the men's bathroom, which I was told to use from now on after I accidentally used the women's bathroom.

Monday, May 4, 2009

My Name!!!

Wow. I have just had the laugh of my life. I always wondered why no one would either say my name "Nico" or find it difficult to pronounce it. People always said "Nicol" or even try "Nuukulus" (as my teacher says). And I always enunciate "N-I-C-O". Even "Niku" people didn't say.

So the other day I was getting a drink of cane juice when I started up a conversation with the sugar-cane man (a close cousin of Willy Wonka). He asked me what my name was and I told him "Nico". He stared at me a little oddly and asked again. I repeated and he laughed out loud. Confused, I resumed my drinking. He leaned over and asked me if I knew what "nico" meant in Egypt. I said no, and and winked at me and did a sort of vulgar thrusting motion with his pelvis from behind the counter. I wasn't sure what he meant or what he wanted, so I laughed, quickly finished my drink, and left, leaving him still laughing from inside the store.

Just now, a male teacher walked in and started talking to me. I wrote my name on the board, in English, and he added "las" to the end and said I shouldn't call myself Nico. Why? Because apparently in Egypt, he whispered, "Nico is a vulgar word for coupling between a man and a woman."

Ha!! And they thought only Arabic names have meaning! Fantastic.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Egypt's Pig Broblem



The title of this entry has a three-fold purpose: 1) to make fun of Arab-speakers who can't say "P", 2) to call attention to the international "pig flu" epidemic and 3) also make fun of this South Asian kid who I went to university with who turned red when I caught him chatting on AOL under the screen name "Pig Benis". Ha ha, dumbass. (Okay, that South Asian kid WASN'T me, though I DID think it was a great pseudonym.)

So, really, I just wanted to talk about #2. And not a lot really, because I haven't had time to research anything or do much reading for that matter, as I am up to my nose in Arabic children's book ("Sindibad, Sindibad!"). Egypt is trying to slaughter all these poor piggies that hang out in the Cairo landfills under the excuse that they might infect humans. Of course, if they had any brains, they would know that apparently the so-called "Mexican swine flue" doesn't mean that pigs necessarily transmit the disease. (I'm also waiting for one day a bad disease or scourge to be called "American" or "European"). But the Egyptian authorities are slaughtering all these animals that mainly belong to Christian Copts (because Muslims don't like pigs. They HATE it when I talk about delicious Spanish jamón serrano).

Well, the people are rioting in Cairo (yeah for riots!) because they aren't being paid enough for their animals being killed. And I don't think they are killing the animals because they belong to a religious minority, such as the Copts. I am trying to invoke the spirit of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine here... Egypt is saying that allowing the pigs to hang out in the landfills is a problem and they need to be put in better, more modern farms. Sound like Sri Lanka's post-tsunami land grab? Or all those other I-did-it-for-such-and-such-reason-but-I-really-want-this type scenarios?

Hmm, I guess we will have to stay tuned. Maybe somewhere in Cairo, some rich Copt has the plan to monopolize pig farming and is already building some industrial pig farm. Which, by the way (and I refer to industrialization of animal farming), is possibly a reason that this outbreak started in the first place (talking NAFTA v. Mexican small farmers).

Ok, what a tangent. Need to get back to my books. Lots of love, PB.