A philosophy of lies:

“Sky is clear, cows in the fields seem to enjoy the nice weather and fresh green grass, dirt and sickness filled sewage canal that is used for the irrigation purposes seem to be following its expected and natural course that it has followed since centuries, and possibly with similar techniques that were used during Pharaonic times, and the train, which arouse this sensation in any western traveler that it is moving on a very bumpy and pot-filled road rather than two supposedly straight railways, is slowly approaching its final destination; Sidi Gaber, Alexandria”

Is this a lie? How about this?

“I am bored out of my skin, so much so that I want to tear my thin protective layer, that has not been doing its job the way it is supposed to be doing for a long time now, namely protecting me from external damages, and once I tear that soft and, by now, weak skin I just want the blood to gush out of it until the last drop is dried on the floor that it was dripping onto, until no sign of life is left with my purposeless and useless body. Now let’s replace ‘bored out of my skin’ with  ‘I am aching awfully’ or better yet, ‘I can’t think rationally anymore because of these dreadful and godless blows being struck at my face and at my very being’ “

Which one is true and which one is lie? Neither!

It is the composition and combination of both. The first paragraph is true in that what exists in the space right now is being described. But it is a lie, because the way I feel does not reflect anything that is around me. The second paragraph represents the truth that is inside me much better, and how I feel about myself and the things that are surrounding me right now, but that also has its flaws. Firstly because I have a very difficult time putting what I think, how I feel and how much these pains in my blood and heart and brain are constantly hurting me into words that can be understood and make sense to people when they read them as opposed to dangling in the air like meaningless and stupid phantasmas.

What is a lie? Really what is a lie after all, and who is a liar? Or rather who is THE liar?

Would a lie still be considered a lie even if it was told in a time of desperation, fear, anger, worry or happiness? If we take all these states of being into consideration, would there be anyone in the world that does not lie?

Oh how much I would rather have an honest enemy than a dishonest friend, even if it is the closest person to me on this vast planet.

So here is the dilemma: There is this mother that only has two children. Both of her kids die in a war. And you have these two options: 1) you could tell her that both of her children are dead, which might cause her have a heart attack and die right there and then, or 2) you could tell her that one of her sons has died and the other’s whereabouts are not known exactly, and this would or might keep her going with life, but in a constant state of mourning, and sorrow.

Which one would you choose? And why? Also, things get even more complicated if we take into consideration the fact that for some people mourning and/or going through indescribable pains is much worse than death itself, because mourning everyday could be as bad as, if not worse than, dying every day from anew. If that is the case with the mother, which option would you choose then?

Anyway, enough with these lies!

I am not scared as much from the sword of the enemy as I am from the lies of the “dost”! -this is a Turkish/Kurdish/Persian word that could be translated as best friend-

wey dinyaye!

gotin li ser zimane min in, le mixabin didan li ser hev ranabin da ku bi azadi, bi xweshi, bi cohsi derbikevin gotin u heta ji desten wan te qira xwe bigihinin ezmanen li ser asimanan, ezmanen pirr bilind u pirr dur, ezmanen stur u ase, teng u direj. her ezmanen regirti, u her ezmanen agirgirti mina chiyaye agiriye!

dawiya dine nez e. le be dewa ye. beredayiye ye. teji bebexti ye. 

yen ku dile min de bun, yek bi yek rabin li ser piyan u pashi ya xwe ji nerenin careki, derketin u chun. ne xatir xwestinek u ne ji gotineke din. ew e para min ji ji dinyaye, xwendevanen heja. de bila wale be!

de bila wale be!

can birds see where they are heading to? i am afraid not. not any longer!

Sky is slowly being taken hostage by the dark forces of the dark Satan. The glistening lights of the bright powers, the sun and the stars namely, are also slowly losing themselves in the euphoric sensation of defeat, to an invincible and almighty foe. It is difficult and tricky to differentiate between friend and fiend.

The debilitating effects of this grimy atmosphere are firmly and incessantly shattering his determination and his might. He is alone. All alone. Like god. No, worse than god in point of fact, as when god wills something he just says it and “it becomes” , as Muslims and all other fortunate faithful believers see it. But not him. He is lonelier than god, in this brute world. In this suffocatingly swarming place when it is hard to even breathe at times for there are too many people. That is what they call themselves. That is how they have come to name themselves. People. Not for him. No, not for him. In this sea of people, he is a lost and haunted ghost all alone in this vast and expansive ocean. He is, dear reader, anybody-less.

Pondering, thinking, brooding, suffering, and bleeding are the main words nowadays that he uses to describe himself. Disappointed, disillusioned, dissatisfied, angry, sad and fatigue are the words he uses to depict how he feels. Revenge, spite, terror, horror and agonizing pains are the words he borrows to illustrate what he wants to inflict upon the ones that have betrayed, backstabbed, pained, wounded him, who have slaughtered his most susceptible, vulnerable, and gentle sentiments and turned them into a monstrous creature that is ready to take the world down with himself. That is ready to strike unrepairable and ineradicable blows at the face of this atrocity, cruelty and inhumanity-filled inhabitance.  

The darkness has finally enveloped his fragile body too. He is helpless and hopeless. His future is nothing but bleak. He is about to explode. It is just a matter of time. And nothing else. It will happen. That is what he feels. His eyes are blind now. Nothing to look at; nothing to see in this pitch darkness. He keeps looking for some source of light, even if it is a slender prospect, the enemy of this nightmarish obscurity, this damning vicious cycle that is taking everything, most of all his humanity, away from him. But there are none in his sight. That is why he has befallen blind to the attacks of the mighty and ruthless enemy. The lies. These lies that are at least as black and potent in disparaging as the lethal weapons of the night and of the Satan. The pinky words of the past that were uttered to him come to his mind. He is revolted, dismayed and nauseated now. Such empty and hollow words. Do you know, dear reader, that in many languages “word” and “promise” are the same word, and mean the same thing. Once a word is pronounced, it is a promise written in stone. Or it should be in any case. That is how he perceives the words and that is, alas, also why he is so pained by them: these same words. Yes, that is profoundly why.

He has decided to wait, a little longer, to see if his blindness could be cured or at least alleviated so that he can prolong his walk of life. But all around is dark. Thus it is easier to see anything bright. However, simpler also to finish this futile and thorn-filled march.

 Jiyan Berxwedan e - Life is Resistance!

In the Narrow Alleyways of Lebanon and Syria

Hodge screamed at our driver for he was being a retard. Not only did he show up late at the meeting place in Alexandria to pick us up and drive us to the airport in Cairo more than an hour, but also even though a lot of the people in the bus told him to turn left, he took the right!


Anyway, we barely made it to checking our luggage in and pass the customs. Jahd's aunt picked me and him up from the airport once we had landed, and we drove to his granny's house. After putting our stuff in the room, we embarked on our little Middle East tour, starting from "the clubbing capital of the Middle East" Beirut. Firstly, we went to a Syrian, low-key restaurant to have some dinner, and headed to this communist bar, where the walls and even the ceilings were covered with pictures of Ernesto Che Guevera and other prominent communist thinkers and leaders, along with some weapons--I saw three-- which all seemed like they were loaded kind of. It was really cool, especially because the people that run it were really hospitable, and warm and provided us with many different kinds of fruits and seeds etc. all on the house.


Ok, I am not going to go day by day, I will just try to talk about important things that I saw, witnessed, and experienced during the ten days I spent in Lebanon and Syria.


After walking around with Jahd for a long while, we decided that we were hungry, as we had not eaten anything practically speaking that whole day, and we decided to settle in the kebabji restaurant--the suffix "ji" is a Turkish suffix and it gives the meaning "someone who does ..." to the word that it is attached to-- right across from American University in Beirut, which is just beautiful, really, if you dont believe me here is a picture from there:

It is like a beautiful nest in the heart of a beautiful city.


We went to see the famous cedar forest, not a forest really. I think, there might be 200 or at max 300 trees left. Because they are symbolic--remember the Lebanese flag-- we had to see them. And we had to drive through some nice valleys and a lot of scenic places. And there were a lot of jesuses and maryies in that little forest; they were in pain.


By the way I have pictures of all these places on my picasa account if you want see pictures of what I am talking about.


We went to a hamam--Turkish Bath-- in Tripoli. It was full of adventures. Some of our friends got violated while getting a massage, and some 40 year old men expressed their interest, openly and loudly, in younger guys. It was creepy, especially after I heard one specific story. Steph, do you hear me?Oh I just remembered that I was going to say this: there is a church in that little cedar forest. Well, I had to pee on its walls. God, I ask for forgiveness!


I finally decided to ask someone to take a picture of me with the rest of the gang that we were traveling with when we were watching Damascus being engulfed by the darkness slowly, from a hilltop, I think it is called Mount Om Kolthum, or something of this sort. But I felt unsatisfied, because I could not take a good picture of the darkness making love with the city. Even though I could not capture a very good picture of that vista I can easily assure you reader, that it was an aesthetic love-making.--There still are some pictures from that night in the album though--


I met a Kurd the first night, a close friend of a close friend of a close friend, seriously. He read one of his poems that he had written, the quality of it was as high as the quality of Cigerxwin's or Melaye Ceziri's poems--being disrespectful is not my intention-- And these two guys I just mentioned are like Shakespeares of the Kurdish literature. He said he has not published any of them yet, but might do something nice with them, once outside, and once he can translate them into English, Spanish, Italian, German and French all by himself. Mind you, other than German and French the guy did speak all the rest in addition to Arabic and Kurdish. I would hear some other random Kurds and Turks speak Kurdish and Turkish on the streets. It felt weird. Also there is this Persian Quarter in the old city. I really liked it. There are Shia mosques all around, everybody is speaking Persian--which sounds so pretty, I am sorry guys but prettier than Arabic--  women that are religious paint themselves with black garments all around, from the toe to the head. It is a very cosmopolitan city, if only they allowed everybody have their most basic human rights. Most Syrians, especially Arab Syrians, though, are very happy with their government surprisingly.


Damascus is a nice city. That is the conclusion.


Off we went to Aleppo, or Halab, or place of the sweets--as all of Syria is known to be--with a train that was clean, and eventless. There I took my favorite picture of the whole trip. It is really simple, but I really like it, a lot. Here it is. Also let me know what you think of it.

After staying there for a night, we drove down to a very famous Crusade castle which is known as Krek, or Crec maybe, de Chevalier in English--but is a French word-- but apparently was called "Hosn-al-Akrad" in Arabic until very recently, which means the castle of the Kurds. I was surprised to see that written on the information billboard in the entrance of the castle. I know you know but nonetheless let me repeat it, proves of what I say are present in the album.


We went back to Beirut on that day, and I took a beautiful picture of no man's land in between the Syrian and Lebanese borders. It is forbidden. But to a man who is about to lose his mind anyway, that does not make much difference, to be completely honest.


We went to a gay bar in Beirut, It was a lot of fun, but ended with anger, kind of. Even though all of us are now over it. right Steph and Jahd?


One other thing, well two now, came to my mind right when I was about to finish this post. One is this: So the first time we went a club, it is called BO18, I was really really hungry and wanted to eat. But there was no food in the club, it was late, there wasn't even a close by restaurant because this place was kind of far away from the downtown. The club, by the way, is cool. It is basically a place underground but there are multiple entries and the roof can open, too, all in the middle of a big parking space, right next to a busy highway. So I asked everyone if they were hungry or if they would like to go buy something with me. Most of them were drunk by this time, and as a result no one wanted to come. So I started my adventure alone. This neighborhood by the way is the Armenian Quarter. I crossed the street and went into this dukkan, shop, that was still open. I asked them if there was any place nearby that I could buy any kind of food. They said there is not. So I was asking them what would be the easiest way getting to the nearest restaurant, when a transvestite dude told me that I should go with him. So I did. He took me through some back and narrow alleys of the neighborhood until we hit a main road at which point he told me that I should walk on this main road for about 7 minutes and I would see an open place where I could buy a sandwich. I had taken a second step when he asked me "Shu Esmaak?". I said: Xelef, and yours? He smiled at me, said his name, which my memory is failing me in remembering it now, and departed. I found the place, had my nice Lebanese sandwich and went back to the club after almost getting lost on the way back through those dark, and dwindling streets of the city.


The second thing is about how Beirut is promoting itself as the "clubbing capital of the Middle East", which I completely agree, that is if Turkey is not included. It is possible to see scars of the past Civil War(s) almost everywhere in Beirut. Still. Other than the new downtown area that has been completely rebuilt with the efforts of the Hariris and the government, which looks really elegant but kind of boring. Imagine a luxurious mall, but with a touch of fake historic stones and colours, that is downtown Beirut to you. But it is really gorgeous.


And here is a last picture from my trip. the ones in the picture are part of my extended family.

 I just wish I was as free as they were. Because I am tired of this sullenness. It is blacking me!


good night and good luck