My confused identity

Where are you from?

While this question is easy to answer most people, the case is different for Palestinians. When someone asks me “where are you from?” I honestly don’t know what to say. Should I tell them that I’m Syrian born, with Palestinian origins and Canadian by citizenship? Or should I give them the easy answer, the answer that will most likely make sense to them?

Are you from the country you’re born in? Or you from the country your family originally came from? Or are you from the country of which you’re a sole citizen of?

Although I was born in Syria, I don’t have a Syrian citizenship. In fact anyone who’s born in Syria and is from Palestinians origins does not get a Syrian citizenship. This is not because Syria discriminates against Palestinians, but rather, to keep the Palestinian identity alive and to keep the refugee issue in the forefront. So in Syria I’m not Syrian, but rather a “Palestinian-Syrian”.

But how can I not be a citizen of the country I was born in. Passports and citizenships aside, isn’t a person from the country that nurtured them, educated them, and provided them with opportunity to carry out a normal life? I have no memories of the Palestinian village where my family came from, but I do have memories of the streets of Homs and Damascus where I grew up. At the same time, I will always have some sort of attachment, although caused purely by imagination, to our Palestinian village. I want to see the scenes that my grandparents described to me, and (the now destroyed) house where my grandparents and some of my uncles and aunts grew up in. Every time I talk to my grandmother, I feel my Palestinian identify come alive. Does this longing to our village and my Palestinian roots make me Palestinian?

At the age of 12 I had no official citizenship. I did not have a passport, I belonged to a country that politically did not (and continues to not) exist, and that’s where Canada comes in. Canada gave me my first citizenship, and my first passport. For the first time ever, I officially belonged to a country. Some people will say “but you’re only Canadian on paper” but I would like to argue otherwise. In a couple of years I will have lived Canada as long as I lived in Syria. In fact, I spent in Canada the most important years of my life. I spent my teen years here, and now I’m spending the first years of my adulthood here. Canadian culture shaped me, and influenced me in the same way that it shaped and influenced Canadian-born Canadians, if you will. Does that make me Canadian then? Are you “from” the country that gave you your first citizenship?

I honestly don’t know the answers to any of the questions in this post. I gave it lots of though, and got nowhere. Do you see why it’s tough to give an answer to people who ask “where are you from?” I found out that no matter what I answer, someone will find a flaw in it, according to different people, I am “from” different countries.

As far as I’m concerned I think a person should be from the country there’re attached to the most. Picking between Syrian and Canada is quite tough. I love both countries, I’m proud of belonging to both, and I want the best for both. I will stand on both countries’ side in rough times. But what about Palestine? My sense of belonging to Palestine is different. While I hold no memories from there, deep inside I feel an attachment to our simple village, and my family’s history. So putting all that together what should I consider my self to be? What’s the answer that makes most sense to you?

technorati tags: Syria, Palestine, Canada, Canadian, Palestinian, Syrian, Identity, Citizenship

Another one of those random update posts

3 reasons for why I want to be at the next World Cup

Sorry for not posting as often these days..

Midterms drained my time and energy, and the second half of the term seems to packed with projects and labs. Labs are pretty interesting, since they put some life into the dull theory we learn in class, but writing 20 page reports is not particularly fun. The ideal lab, is a lab where we get to perform the experiment, perform some calculations, and get asked some theoretical questions (orally), all during the lab period. So there’s no take home part to them… but that’s ideal, and school is far from that.

There are a few long weekends in the summer, and I’d like to make use one of them and take a trip to the beach, but we’ll have to see how that turns out. Since like I said before, we’re getting bombarded with projects, so the weekends will probably get spent working on school stuff.

I have had so many ideas for posts lately, but I just don’t have the time to write any. I will be revealing some news that I’m particularly excited about, and that some of you already know, so keep tight.

The world cup is going well so far.. main disappointment has been France. What a waste of talent! In my opinion it’s all the manager’s fault, and Vieira’s, the guy can’t shoot worth crap. And where’s Trezeguet? I hope they go through just so I can see Zidane play a few more games.

Lastly, I want to thank all who voted for me for the Toot design competition. I’m not exactly sure about where I ended up, but I think I was somewhere in the top ten (I was sixth a week before the poll was closed). Top ten is amazing considering the fierce competition and the number of blogs. Congrats to those who won.

Huda's Story - the latest victim of the state-led terrorism

Huda mourns her family members during their funeral. Israeli shelling had killed her entire family in an outing in Gaza. Reuters [source]

"Don't leave me alone mama, papa, take me along with you, I cannot live alone without you all. Please dear brother, sisters, don't go and leave me behind."

Repeating these words amid tears, Huda Ghalia was the lone survivor of Israeli shelling that had killed her entire family in an outing that was supposed to be pleasant, leisurely and away from daily chores.

But destiny had decided otherwise for Huda's family on the shores of the Mediterranean sea.

Only ten-year-old Huda, a fourth grade student in UNRWA school survived, making Palestinians and the world at large weep as she looked upon her father lying on the sand, mistaking his death for sleep until she saw blood seeping from his wounds, only to realise that she had lost him forever. [source]

I got this e-mail today from my friend Chet; it has a link to the blog of a Palestinian doctor who works at the hospital where the victims (from the recent beach attack on a Gaza beach) were treated. please read it and pass the message on.

I have an URGENT request to you .. I wrote the same already to Abed and Khaled in Jordan!

This morning I almost accidentally came across a blog from a phasician abd Human Right activist in Gaza, Mona Al-Farra ... her URL is http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/

She was in the hospital where little Huda and the rest of her family were treated after this horrid attack at the beach! You can imagine she's NOT in the best psychological condition and needs urgently support!

I think we ALL can make a difference here and give her the strength to keep on helping others! Please try to drop her some lines ... regularily if possible - to make her feel she is not alone!

What would be a GREAT idea as well is spread this news so that she will get mail from as many as possible people!

UPDATE: Human Rights Watch Concluded that the incident was most likely caused by a 155 mm Israeli fired shell

There have been suggestions that a mine could have been planted on the beach to deter Israeli amphibious assaults.

But an expert working for the Human Rights Watch said the Palestinians' injuries were not consistent with a blast taking place beneath them.

"It has been suggested by some that the family was killed by a land mine, and this is patently not the case," Mark Garlasco said.

"All of the evidence is pointing to a 155mm shell as having killed and injured the Palestinians here on the beach," he said [source]

technorati tags: Palestine, Gaza, Terrorism, Israel

World Cup and midterms are a bad mix

Damn it! why does every amazing soccer tournament coincide with my summer school terms?
Two years ago it was Euro Cup and now it's the World Cup. Isn't it already unfair for soccer lovers living in Canada? We hardly get any soccer on TV, and worse yet, every sports channel has baseball on in the summer... Sheesh!

Midterms start on Monday, I guess the marks are going to take a hit this term...

technorati tags: world, cup, soccer, zidane, baseball, canada, midterms, school

Thoughts and Speculations on Zarqawi's Death

Am I happy he’s dead? Why wouldn’t I be?
I can safely say that thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives because of this man. His group carried out many bombings in busy streets, markets, and hotels killing women and children, just because there were a few American soldiers in the area.

He brought shame to us. He made us look like blood hungry terrorists in front of the world. All for what? What were his achievements?

All that said, I will maintain that the existence of the Zarqawi and the likes, is a direct by-product of the illegal American invasion. The chaos in Iraq provided Zarqawi with an opportunity to enter Iraq and carry out his terrorist attacks. The fact that he was killed does not mean that there will be an end to the mess in Iraq. In fact killing him will perhaps fuel many of his followers to commit more crimes, all under a new banner “Al Zarqawi Martyrs Brigade.”

Finally I want to hypothesize that Zarqawi brought his death upon himself. I think there’s a direct link between the video he recently released and the intelligence pinpointing to where he was hiding. Perhaps the video’s origin was traced back with the help of some Zarqawi’s “trusted” few.

All in all, we should be happy that a man like Zarqawi is eliminated but we should not call it “mission accomplished” just yet. The mission is accomplished when the Iraqi’s have a truly democratic country, where they can walk in the streets with a feeling of state, and Iraq free of an occupying force.

technorati tags: Zarqawi, Iraq, Terrorist, Terrorism, USA, Raid, Bombing, War

Calling on the masses to vote...

Me dancing at the first Syrian blogger meetup

If you follow Toot, you probably know that there’s a blog design competition going on. And if you’re following Roba’s blog you probably know that somehow, my blog is in “hot water”. So I figured since people are voting for me, I should give you all some info on the design.

First I want to you to know that I have 0 artistic talent, 0 Photoshop skills, and little to none HTML know-how. So this blog template represent the best of my abilities. (this is where you feel sorry for me)

It took me a total of about 1.5 hours to gather images, Photoshop them, and make some changes to the background and other things. (this is where you say “that’s pretty good for a guy who’s still living in 1984”)

The banner is a parody of Michel Angelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. (this is where the artsy readers will decide to vote for me)

Blue is my favourite colour. (I have no smart ass comment to make here)

So…

Given that my non-existent artistic talent, and lack of know-how, I came to the belief that there are lots of nice people who are voting for me. So if you’re nice and you want to vote then please click here.

What's the big deal with the Da Vinci Code movie?

What’s the big deal with watching Da Vinci Code? Why are countries racing to ban it? Why are we so damn backwards? But I’m going to cut Arabs some slack, they’re not the only people banning it. Talking to many friends of mine, who regularly attend church, I found out that their churches are “recommending” people to not to watch the movie. Shouldn’t your faith be so strong that it can’t be shaken by a movie? How insecure are you people?

But at least we got to see the movie here. Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and even parts of India, banned the movie, on the premise that the movie is disrespecting Jesus. Well, at least I see consistency, we freaked out about the cartoons, so it’s only natural we ban the movie. I guess we’re a bit too sensitive about religion, but that’s not the point of the post.

I wanted to write this to give everybody else an idea of how the movie was dealt with here. As I mentioned the movie was shown like any other movie, with some churches recommending that people shouldn’t see it. At the same time a huge media campaign was launched on numerous channels with documentaries highlighting the fact and fiction in the Da Vinci Code. History channel had a Da Vinci Code week! They talked about everything from the Holy Grail to Opus Dei. So people got informed, and at the same time they were able to watch the movie. At least people got to see both views, and then they can make up their own mind.

Personally, I don’t believe everything the novel says, but some of the theories in there seem quite plausible. The way I look at is that you can’t prove anything the Bible anymore than you can prove anything in Holy Blood Holy Grail. The main difference between the two books is that the former forms the basis of the belief of millions of people on the world, while the latter doesn’t. But this is a whole discussion in it’s own.. so I’ll leave you with this, and this. They’re both documentaries on the Da Vinci Code presenting both side of the argument. I have seen second one, and I like it a lot...