From Kayvan -- in Amman

From my Cairo roomie, who likely likes Rumi, Kayvan Farchadi:

Dear All,

It is hard to express the last week or so in any concise way: I have been held for 12 hours by Israeli security personnel on the Jordanian/Palestinian border, interrogated and searched thoroughly, interrogated for a total of 8 hours by Jordanian Mukhaberat (in Persian, no less), and moved by buses with blacked-out windows to a total of two 'secret' locations. The US embassy, though very cordial, told me they can be of no assistance. I found that a bit odd, and wondered if 'American-Americans' (read: whitewashed Americans) would get the same response, but I brushed these questions aside and took each grueling experience as an opportunity to learn about how these security apparatuses function. They are, of course, a very real and constant part of many peoples' lives. Currently, I am in Amman, Jordan acting as more or less of a tourist. I have talked with a host of cab drivers, Jordanians, Palestinians, NGO staff, smugglers, architects, soldiers, police officers, liquor store owners, Muslims, Christians, etc during my time here. Yes, I saw the sites.

Meanwhile, I have been staying with a Palestinian friend I met in Egypt and his family. Perhaps the most important thing I have come to understand though our conversations is the role of Palestinians in Jordan. Palestinian refugees and their children make up at least half of the citizens of Jordan (not to mention Queen Rania is of Palestinian decent). Citizenship was opened in 1950 and Palestinians were crucial to the development of Jordan into the prosperous country we see today. However, though most hold Jordanian citizenship, many Palestinians still identify very strongly with their villages, towns, and cities in Palestine (they "Put on for their city" in the words of rapper Young Jeezy). The family I am staying with are refugees from 1948 from Ain Karem, a town just west of Jerusalem, in what the United Nations recognizes as Israel. That is, in the two state model, Ain Karem will not be part of a 'Palestine'.

Good luck telling that to my (incredibly gracious) hosts. Not only do they all have pictures of their specific village in all of their shops, but they live a virtual replica of Ain Karem. The village moved together to Jordan in 1948, lived in caves outside of Amman, survived Black September, and began rebuilding a life together in what is now the Al-Hasemi Al-Shomali suburb of Amman. In my friend Yassir's family, all of the men have taken up a different trade or profession that will be needed when (not if) they return to Ain Karim in order to quickly restore their ancestral home. Not to mention, they all received basic military training in their youth should they need to call a Palestinian National Army. From their family farm in western Jordan where they spend their weekends, they can see a panorama of the West Bank. "I can't imagine how it feels to see that every week," I told them. "You get used to it," Yassir's older brother replied as he heaped more barbecued pigeon in my hands.

To my Iranian peers, please do not rush to make up your mind about this conflict in an effort to define yourselves as the negation of all that is the Islamic Republic of Iran and their hideous policies. To my American peers, please take my words in earnest and realize the power you have in shaping this situation; America is the number one patron of both Jordan, Israel, and Egypt. If assume we live in a democracy, it is our responsibility to at least know what our representatives are responsible for. To my Israeli peers, please do not let hyper-nationalism and fear blind you from the disservice your government's policies are doing to you and the Palestinian people. Walls create two prisons; some are kept out, but others are trapped in. To my Arab peers, please do not let anger and displaced aggression limit your capacity to be objective in seeking a just solution. Blind aggression and bigotry are not attractive qualities to emulate.      

As an armed Israeli teen told me the other day - Peace and Love. I will be returning to the US on Saturday.

Thank you for your support.

Kayvan 
 

Jordanian UN Troops Acting like Goons in #Haiti

UN troops, many of whom are Jordanians (I was born in Jordan), caught on video acting like thugs in Haiti by CBS.

Reminds me of a bit from Saturday Night Fever:

Everybody has to dump on somebody!
Nobody can do it straight, right?

My pa gets dumped on at work,
so he dumps on my mother.

The spics dump on us,
so we have to dump on them.

Everybody's dumping on everybody.

Don't hold your breath waiting on CBS to expose wrongdoing by US troops.

MLK thoughts

obama at a shelter
flinging a coin at some beggars
for the cameras
he's the beggar
need to globalize freedom summer
like in cairo
that was the ideas behind
international solidarity movement
bless them

while in amman read about nasser
'the last arab'
and how arabs have been orphaned
since his death
same with blacks in the us
orphaned and lost since mlk's killing

remembered that the last time I cried - I mean really sobbed - was at the motel

Favorite MLK Speech (even more than Riverside)

Actually -- and this might be why I like it -- it's not a speech, it's a sermon. I just plugged the great April 4, 1967 speech at Riverside Church on an IPA news release, which is not nearly as well known as it should be, but many activists do know about it. What fewer people know about is that after that speech and the establishment attack on King, he responded with successively stronger speeches (though I remember reading in one of his biographies that King cried when the New York Times attacked him). One of those speeches was at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967. Much of the text is the same as Riverside, but he is somewhat more passionate there, perhaps more at home than at Riverside, but perhaps more importantly he attacks the establishment media:

Been a lot of applauding over the last few years. They applauded our total movement; they've applauded me. America and most of its newspapers applauded me in Montgomery. And I stood before thousands of Negroes getting ready to riot when my home was bombed and said, we can't do it this way. They applauded us in the sit-in movement--we non-violently decided to sit in at lunch counters. The applauded us on the Freedom Rides when we accepted blows without retaliation. They praised us in Albany and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. Oh, the press was so noble in its applause, and so noble in its praise when I was saying, Be non-violent toward Bull Connor;when I was saying, Be non-violent toward [Selma, Alabama segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark. There's something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, Be non-violent toward Jim Clark, but will curse and damn you when you say, "Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children. There's something wrong with that press!

There is one minor quibble I have with this sermon -- it ends with the lines "And nations will not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore. And I don't know about you, I ain't gonna study war no more." But I think we do need to study war. We need to study war and all its destructiveness in excruciating detail.

See text and audio of the sermon "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" -- someone put excerpts of it (via my husseini.org I'm delighted to say) on YouTube and it's getting to one million views: