Ben Abdülhamid

Ben Abdülhamid
sızlıyor her yanım
Almanlarla dostluklarım
zihnimde İngiliz kelimeler

Kudüs- kitlesem kapıları
deliklerden giriyor tefeciler, tüccarlar
Çeteleri besliyor Selanik
Ağrı'nın kar-pak zirvesi
uykularımı bölüyor her gece
anılarım, ve açılacak yaralarım

ben Abdülhamid,
sızlıyor her yanım

Al Quds- media contingencies

I have been watching the ad for the documentary on genetics on MBC since I got to Amman "leke en tetehayyel maza yumkin en yahdus...." and today was the first time I got to watch it. An Anglosaxon production that is dubbed into Arabic.
Apart from very disturbing pictures concerning obsessive compulsive behaviour, we were also transported to Quds, where the Israelis were conducting research on genes that regulated a person's need for change. So we were shown pictures of an English/Israeli moving into his house in a settlement, the voice over saying that this was his nth move in so many months, and that he had the urge to buy any new electronic equipment, etc. His need for change was a "genetic condition", the documentary suggested.
All the objection that the Arabic translation could offer was calling Jerusalem "al Quds al muhtalla".

What Hamid Ismailov's "The Railway" makes me think

as I record the number and patterns of the bedouin tents that have camped up the hill these past two months

way too many lands, way too many books to go looking for the beloved-

Palimpsest III

This purple-blue-yellow evening finds me trying to decipher a Kabbani poem with the help of Hans Wehr, and I am transported to more than a decade ago, when I had not heard of the name Kabbani or Wehr, and when, in a dark and dingy cafe in Istanbul someone passes me 'To Beirut'.

Nothing is over, ever

This purple-blue-yellow Amman evening finds me running from one Abraham to another. Yet again.

Palimpsest II

Qasr Azraq, Front Quad, if you please

Arabs, Turks and Englishmen, and stories told late into the night

Turks, Armenians, Palestinians

I discovered the Fishawi of Amman the other day with a large group of Turks. There was Turkish coffee, excellent lemon and mint and cocktails, backgammon, the whole thing. There was also a book room, a photograph of Mourid Bargouthi and a burnt on wood portrait of Ghassan Kanafani. Obviously, the place to be. Oh, and then live oud music.

When the girl at the next table warned me about her nargileh we striked up a conversation in Arabic, she asking where we were from and then quite unexpectedly saying that we all looked very Armenian. Of course, I said, we're from the same part of the world, but you'll hardly find Armenians wearing hijab (she herself was a non-hijabi). Yes, she said, they're Christians, aren't they? Anyway, it gives you a warm feeling inside to see that despite the obvious difference, they still recognize Armenians on Turks' face. She, for her part, it turned out, was a Jordanian of Palestinian descent, from Nablus.