Arab GLBT

One of the biggest taboos in the Arab world is finally coming to the surface, thanks to the internet. GLBTs ( Gay,Lesbian,Bi/Transsexuals) have been denied existence till this day in Arabic countries. Whilst some of them are finding a breathing space outside, the Arabic world is still struggling to accept this important sector of the community.

Initially, I was very sceptic about the idea of GLBT. Maybe my upbringing had a factor in that early attitude towards people with other sexual orientations. But it was in England when I gave these people a chance, tried to understand how they think and actually read abit about the subject when I came to terms with GLBT. Before that, I was a homophobe who thought gays were simply sick. I would leave my thoughts about Bi and Trans for me as they were not very pleasant.

So one obstacle is gone, now I am quite comfortable dealing with non-heterosexuals when something happened. I never gave the idea of ' Arab GLBT ' a thought, I was not even curious. I probably made the connection of Arab = No GLBT so I foolishly thought they were not even there. I was asked once if they existed and I was like : yes of course. But deep inside I was not entirely sure. But when I met them face-to-face, that was the turning point.

It was one summer night, I was walking down through downtown Toronto when I heard some familiar Arabic music. I was happy and thought : Yea, finally found an Arabic nightclub, let's go in. So I paid the cover and went inside. What I saw left me gobsmacked. It was a gay arabic nightclub. I stood in the corner, ordered a drink and watched attentively. My friends just wanted to leave, they did not feel comfortable. They started to get worried with the inviting looks they were receiving from the dancing guys. They were bugging me on and on but I did not care. I was enjoying myself, it was this new unfamiliar world. It had the touch of mystery, it was something I never bothered to think about. It was like that my brain kept everything regarding Arab GLBT locked away in my unconscious. The flood of questions, the mystery vanishing and the joy of seeing the ' underworld ' were too much for me to leave early. All my senses were on alert, I wanted to get as much as possible from my new surrounding. The fact that I suddenly felt excited and happy did not go down too well with my friends who started to become really annoying. I had to finally buy them each a drink so they can get off my back for a second. Something that I still recall is how happy those people in the night club were ( except my friends ). Everyone was so free and so spontaneous and trying to enjoy their lives. They were all living the moment and relishing their new status in the society. They finally existed and no Arab leader, political or religious , can deny them their lives and their dreams.

One hell of an experience that will stay with me for a long long time.

More on the subject soon.

Any comments cirtiquing the style/content will be greatly appreciated

Complexity Science

So my 2nd semester has officially started, the Professors did not take long to make it well known of the tough times ahead. Assignments and duties started to get posted online and it is our duties as ' independent learners' to check and do them.

Amongst all of this mess, I found some time to talk to one of my instructors. We had an interesting talk about my progress and how to move forward. We talked abit about ' Complexity Science' and how this new way of thinking is getting popular in the academic community. I read a book about Complexity Science ( CS ) and it got me hooked. The introduction got me thinking and caused me to rethink my the way I approach human interactions. CS talks about humans as highly variable and unpredictable agents and their interactions in groups being very similar to chaos. But that chaos has patterns and such patterns are arranged in a way so they are found in what's called Adaptive Complex Systems ( ACS ).

CS proposes that we cant understand humans and their interactions if we still use the traditional ways. The traditional ways, sometimes referred to as Newtonian, claims that once we find the formula, then we can make all kinds of predictions about any system. That's the anti-thesis for CS. Humans are highly unpredictable themselves, they are variable in their emotions, attitudes and actions within themselves. If each person is a varibale entity how can his/her interactions with a large number of similar entities be predictable?.

The more I think about this, the more it fits to my world. My program at university uses CS to a certain extent and I finally understood why. I see how my faculty is different in their approach to individual concerns and problems. I am getting a grasp finally of what's happening around me.

On a personal level, being more knowledgable in CS has allowed me to improve my social interaciton skills. I am trying to be more understanding with others. Why should I expect them to think and behave like me? Should they even be similar? Is not it their right to be different? CS explained alot in that respect.

CS extends to other aspects of social interactions that I may look into in future postings.

Your comments regarding my style/content are greatly appreciated. I truly need them inorder to improve. Thanks :)

Facebook

After Hi5 and myspace, a new online community came to life. It was started by a bunch of Harvard geeks which wanted an exclusive online lounge for American university students. The project was expanded to let in North Americans and then students from all over the world. (That's when I joined ). A final upgrade then arrived and facebook became accessible to anyone with an email address. That's when I thought problems will start. I expected people outside from university to join and so anonymous and rude comments will prevail in this nice lovely online hangout.

Now looking back, I am thinking about how stupid I was to think that way. I was fooling myself with the ' education ' arguement and hell I was proven wrong.

Facebook encloses many groups and so I have the hobby of occassionally going over some of them. I take a special interest in Iraqi ones. Most of them are non-political, mostly social and are quite fun to read. Then a major twist happened on Dec.30th. Saddam execution was too big of a political event for any Iraqi to ignore. Even the Iraqis born outside Iraq had to discuss this, 'Saddam is dead '.

First, the impulsive blabber came out with people claiming the Eid tastes sweeter while others started to mourn the martyr. All such comments were from supposedly educated and enlightened university students in N.America. Then, discussions started to happen between two uncompromising extreme points of views that reminded me of elementary school arguements ( whose shoes are better or whose football shot is stronger or whose Dad is smarter ) . This kind of stuff that really amased me.

The discussions then started to go down another route. Swearing started to come in, sectarian terms followed and then bans from groups started to fly around. I became curious and asked here and there and apparently most of these people were either born outside Iraq or left Iraq really young. I expected some tension following the execution but the amount of hostility and the hatred that I sensed shocked me. It was all too much to take and people were talking about reconcilation and uniting the country back again. We could not do it on facebook in simple discussions about a single and most importantly a vital part of Iraq history. Saddam's position can not be discussed. Noone can justify his actions or his deeds but still Iraqis could not get over that subject in a civilised discussion. Until now, some people are still arguing against his death and actually mourning his death.

Such online differences could not but confirm my fears of not seeing a united Iraq soon. The fact that a good sector of Iraqis cant get over the fact of Saddam's death summarises alot. Some still argue about his achievements for Iraq and will not accept any discussion of the matter. This is coming from supposedly educated,well-off Iraqis living in liberal and democratic countries. I certainly will not blame the Iraqis inside for what's happening. If those elite of the country are still so close-minded and cant forget,forgive or move on, what hope do we have inside this torn country??

Your comments will be greatly appreciated,whether to content or style. Thx :)

Starting to blog

Finally, I made the decision to start blogging. It will be part of my plan to improve my writing. I hope people will comment on my style as well as the content of my postings. And by criticism, I anticipate that my writing will become better, I wont mind rants or anything, I like reading other people's comments :). P.S. : This doesnt mean to get rude pleaaaseeeee

I have enjoyed reading other blogs and commenting about them. I hope this will turn out to be as fun given that I keep it up on a regular basis.

1st post sooon :)