“HAMAD DREAM OF 2030 IS NOT APPEARED YET IN BAHRAIN!...HAMAD YOU ARE A DICTATOR” - from a protest sign at beginning of film
“I feel really alone. Whether it was a democratic country or an authoritarian country. All of them acted the same when it came to us. I discovered that my humanity is a subject of discussion. Should I be killed in the street or not be killed? Based on the interests of the United States or Saudi Arabia or other countries. It’s the killing of a dream.”
“When I’m sleeping, a lot of times I dream we are returning to the roundabout. To this day I dream it is there. I don’t feel it is broken.”
"This [facebook] page was a virtual lynch mob, focused on a 20 year old girl, named Ayat al Qurmezi. She had read a poem criticizing Khalifa and the King at Pearl Roundabout. The page asked thousands to participate in defaming her honor, and demanded her arrest and torture in prison. It wasn't long before they got their wish. Masked commandos broke down the door of her family home and took her to prison...After three months in prison, Ayat surfaced for this apology on state TV, which the family says was obtained by electric shock torture and forcing her to open her mouth while army and police officers spat in it."
- from "Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark" by May Ying Welsh of Al-Jazeera, the only journalists who stayed
Ayat al Qurmezi (read her BLOG)
"I have not yet finished forcing every candle of dreams (youth) on this motherland..."
- line from the poem by Ayat al Qurmezi which led to her imprisonment, translated by Mohamed Al-mahroos
_________
I had come out of a bedroom, pajamas and all, to greet a few friends. Sitting patiently and in reserved calm is my wife and a local actor in town, sitting outside in the main room of my abode. I begin talking about recent books I’ve read. I start talking about a book on the subject of black history in the American South pointed at the presence of the actor, who I only recently became acquainted with. I continue to divulge in The Inconvenient History of Brazil, which I learned received the greatest influx of African slaves than anywhere else. She is sweet and doesn’t mind me carrying on. In another room, my brother and a friend are worriedly arguing about how to get to Los Angeles, specifically to have more drinks. Ignoring them, I saunter out of the house and find my way to a nearby bus stop.
Small trickles of rain bear down on the fogged windows of the bus as we cross through a muddy swamp area. The bus driver is exceptionally personable and a great comfort, in total control. In mid-conversation, I ask to be dropped off at a local convenience store. The cold, wet ground feels like a vent of sticky moisture from the saturated soil. Immediately outside the door, three homeless Aboriginal people kneel prostrating outside the store entrance, while one of them, a middle aged lady takes to a free gift of exceedingly processed fast food. I enter, greeting the store owners. As I look out the window, I see a group of girls in beachwear catapulting themselves off a nearby roof for the humorous purposes of landing on a trampoline. I walk out to get a closer look. The first lands extremely short, the second a bit further and right on her spine. She gets up aching, only to watch a third catapult far beyond the trampoline’s distance. Her impact is felt with crushing intensity as she writhes in a split-second. Witnessing, one can immediately tell her thigh must be broken. I then enter the store again, and with uncontrollable laughter, we are outraged by the stark contrast between the different kinds of help needed around the store.
_________
History
"To dream that you are reading history, indicates a long and pleasant recreation."
Rain
"A powerful symbol of renewal and spiritual cleansing...Interpretation is contingent on your current circumstances as well as the kind of rain that is falling...Depending on the dreamer it could suggest a period of renewal and fertility (reproduction or creativity)."
Help
"If you dream that you help someone, or someone asked you for help, it means that you will succeed without needing help from anyone."
(iDream)
_________
can you tell me why you want to lose your minds?
“is the mind not a functional device?
a stronghold of impurity, though weak as a right?
a vile desire entrenched in the quickening of race and drabness?
or old as a tire-stretched din?"
shrieking at dawn with favored kids,
roped to the sound in time
only for a moment
“to flesh out the wicked rot
a spawn of loss and un-coped wires
fuming ghastly as the corpse
that smoked wild smoke
and leapt to a magic unseen and disbelieved
except by the weeded out freak-smiling lawmakers at dawn”
the hopeless mold sweetens through an unearthly jail
round toxic commotion encircles in ash and loneliness
wakefulness opens to the sole breath of god
and waiting awhile for the noose tightened,
alas around the saviors brightened tooth shown under a restful laugh...
- excerpt from "Why you want to lose your minds."
Thanks for the info on Ayat al Qurmezi - I had no idea (Western media blackout). Man that woman is fierce! It's disgusting that my tax dollars go to support such torture being done to her and thousands of others. I wonder how different it would be here if someone at a large public forum read a poem that had Satan wash his hands of Obama because he had become such an immoral monster. Thank God she is still speaking, and that the power of her resistance is multiplying.
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