Breezy lunch, the other day at Tawleh.
A friend at another table pokes me,“No writings these days?” I volley softly back, “T’s the season to be snoozing.”
So, he proceeds to tell me a
chuckle of a story.
A few weeks back, he was sitting next to a somebody in one Gulf
Shiekdom’s Majlis, where somebodies
and nobodies and everybody in between congregate to conduct business and ask
for and/or dispense favors. My friend noticed beautiful calligraphy on the screen
of this somebody’s cell and asked to see it up close.
There it was, that most magnificent of Egyptian sayings: ما حديش فاهم حاجة.
There it was, that most magnificent of Egyptian sayings: ما حديش فاهم حاجة.
Revolutions and other such like assortments of trouble will confuse the hell out of you every single time. But, truth be told, making fun of feeling put upon is a tradition with deep roots in these parts, borne out of the tedium of being kept in the dark for excruciatingly long periods. Dungeon humor!
Back in the old pre-WWWeb days, ما حديش فاهم حاجة was a symptom
of either information malnourishment or too much conniving behind closed doors;
oftentimes both: rummage through the state news all you liked, you had to
content yourself with crumbs while waiting for history’s tellers, or some of
those deep policy papers, to set the record(s) straight.
You’d think that ما حديش فاهم حاجة had finally met its match in this beast of a wild web.
What’s that new buzzword? Yes, empowering
that push of the button. Breaking news when it’s just about to, stats galore, a scent of Burma this very second should I want it, the marvelous sight of a
creeping trend, the discovery of wisdom strewn all over an obscure post, a new
great tweep friend.
But barely two years into the uprisings, ما هديش فاهم حاجة
is back, aptly enough, swimming on the surface of an Arab’s
cell.
Nifty that: knowing so much until you know nothing. Pendulums will
swing faster than the clock ticks when the times are a changing. We all get
that, but it does beggar that most profound of questions in this age of cyber
abundance: What for, this verbal diarrhea?
I mean, how many different ways do we need to describe, as if
for the first time, President Mursi’s screw-ups? How silly is it to keep repeating that Lebanon’s mess,
aside from being messy all by itself, can be dumped on Syria’s? Or that it’s
just shocking that sexual harassment is so shocking, shockingly in Tahrir
Square? Or that King Abdullah of Jordan talks the walk, but he sure don’t walk
it?
And try poking
holes in the suckers, all impregnated with enough caveats for that dreaded
moment lurking around the corner when they all turn out to be—wrongy!
Seriously now,
what kind of friggin ride is this? It could be this or it could be that. Or a
bit of this and a whole lot that. Or is it the other way around? Oh, shit! It’s
none of the above.
Pick’em at random, in fact!
The Islamists have arrived. Are here. Are it… Er, Not quite.
Not in a thousand years—maybe less but it could be more--will
they rise up in Bashar’s Syria.
Bashar has packed up the chandeliers and Asma the kids…could be
next week…next month…but most likely in 2013; if not, then probably 2014.
Moaz AlKhatib is definitely Qatar’s man... Not! kind
of! Ditto for the US.
And, where, where, in the million and one renditions on the Syrian opposition, had anyone, anywhere, mentioned just once the man from nowhere Ghassan Hitto Bitto before he showed up as interim prime minister?
And, where, where, in the million and one renditions on the Syrian opposition, had anyone, anywhere, mentioned just once the man from nowhere Ghassan Hitto Bitto before he showed up as interim prime minister?
Own up! How many of the pensives
saw it coming, when Tunisia’s ex-PM Hamadi Jebali rebelled against the Ennahda
Party, which he heads, and slapped Rachid Ghannoushi’s hand which he daily
kisses? Or when the SCAF’s Mohammad
Hussein Tantawi and Sami Annan fell out on their ass, booted out by the lower brass?
Which takes me back to that part about the runs. Why all the blabbering
heads if they can’t blabber their way to the truth every once in a while? Mind you, quieter types have, from the
start, been carefully picking all of those for us. Meows in a circus, though.
Then again, what’s the fun in a sea of change if you’re not
flapping idiotically in it? Migraine? Just shut down the popcorn machines
(borrowed this one from a novelist friend). Which brings me back to the beginning.
The bit about seasons and snoozing.
1 comment:
As rhythmic and fun and fantastical a read as any Dr Seuss story!
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