Testimonial of US Immigration Policy Failure

Here is a letter written and mailed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS), and cc'd to NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey. "Policy" being a misnomer here.


I am filing a complaint for the abuse and impoverishment my husband and I have endured for four years under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security and its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unit. I may write in hyperbole but not in jest. This certainly is more than a mere complaint; I am reporting concrete examples of incompetence, non-transparency and discrimination.

I am an American citizen and have been reduced to a second-class citizen after marrying a third-class citizen of the globe from the ‘developing world’. I am a Ph.D. student and my program required me to complete my coursework and examinations at my university. My then fiancé came to join me in the United States because of this obligation. I then took up a research project abroad and wanting to live together, my husband joined me. Being a student and my husband being a new resident of the US, we lived on a limited income and now living abroad I live on an even more meager budget. Throughout these four years – from filing the fiancé petition to the current reentry permit application – we have spent thousands of dollars just to be together as a married couple and for me to be able to stay in my Ph.D. program. We have faced many unknowns as to his residency and work status in the country, in addition to continued indebtedness, sizable periods of unemployment and months (and months) of separation.

When we were living abroad this year, my husband had to apply for the removal of conditions on his residence (I-751 Petition). On the I-751 Petition is written under “What Is the Filing Fee?” that:

“If you live outside the United States, Guam, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, contact the nearest U.S. consulate or embassy for instructions on the method of payment.”

I tried contacting the U.S. Embassy in Egypt (where we reside) for instructions on payment, but because of the limited staff at the Embassy, I did not get a definitive response to my inquiry until months later. (I called them, they told me to email them. I emailed them and never got a response. I called them again and couldn’t get through. This continued after numerous attempts to get through. Finally I got through and was told the same thing: email them. Why? Because they do not have any personnel on staff who can answer the question. When I finally received a response, it was that the Embassy in Egypt cannot handle this request.) I called USCIS to find out what in fact our options were. There were none. So how were we to pay the very large $545.00 fee when we were making money in Egyptian Pounds -- $545 being nearly equivalent to a month’s pay here? We had to borrow the money. And we had wasted much time finding out about an nonexistent service that the US Department of Homeland Security claims to provide.

Before my husband returned to the US this summer for removing the conditions on his residency, we checked and double checked what the requirements would be before he returned to Egypt. We did our research, sought free legal advice and decided that the best option would be for him to petition for a reentry permit. We knew that we needed $305 for the reentry permit and that it needed to be filed before he left the country. This must have been in May-June. Then, a few weeks ago we got ready to file the I-131 Form (for reentry) and noticed to our dismay that another requirement was added to the form. According to USCIS's Office of Communications memo (dated June 30, 2009), effective immediately is a biometrics requirement for all reentry permit applicants (see http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/I-131_QA.pdf).

This means that not only do we have to pay another $80, but my husband, without a car, needs to take nearly a whole day off work and to pay the roundtrip bus fare in order to get to the immigration office for the appointment. Further, he has to pay the airline to delay his departure from the country because of the setting of the biometrics appointment. The USCIS memo warns applicants to apply for the permit well in advance of their travelling date…that’s fine and well, but excuse me, I did not realize that we were required to check and recheck the USCIS website for any random ruling on their part that directly affects our life, our marriage and our well-being! After all, no one sent us an email memo telling us of this change that went into effect immediately.

This is one telltale sign of the Department’s total lack of transparency. Public administrations are built to serve the public, not to reign arbitrarily over them. When a new ruling is made it would be prudent of the Department at minimum to announce this and make it effective the following year, not immediately. It is a further nonsensical requirement. When my husband has called USCIS to request permission to not take the biometrics since he just did a month ago, he is met with rigidity. What sense is it to take two biometrics exams within a two-month period?

And are there any options for low-income people like us? There are no options for the applications, although a fee waiver is made available for the biometrics appointment. The waiver is made so unappealing, however, as to make it practically unavailable. If one applies and the waiver is rejected, the applicant must start from the beginning. Having to start over again with the application would cost us more financially and emotionally than the waiver could possibly offer.

At the very least, free bus rides to and from the immigration offices should be made available. At the very least, we should expect our government agencies to take a stand against the widespread societal discrimination against and marginalization of those reliant on public transportation.

But this complaint is a testimonial to the failures of a privatization agenda that has stripped public agencies of staff, adequate services and deliberate decision-making. The enormous fees of these services has left me feeling I am dealing with a private enterprise, but I know that in the context of a flattened public sector the costs are born more and more by private citizens like myself. Paying an arm and a leg just to be in a marriage to a non-US citizen and to have continued access as a married couple to my country of birth causes me much frustration, anger and sadness.

I wish that all citizens demand that our public agencies serve the public and all therein fairly – not just those who fall within chosen categories. The recent immigration policies that fall under the Department of Homeland Security have surely and steadily damaged US citizens and their families, and it is with my personal complaint that I provide a corroborative account of immigration policy failures.

Eyes Wide Shut

Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut offers one of the most radical critiques of society that I have seen in film in a number of years, and like Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1970 Burn!, the film was mainstreamed. Marlon Brando played the main actor in Pontecorvo’s film, and the best known Hollywood couple at the time, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, play the couple of Eyes Wide Shut. And how often do such radical perspectives get mainstreamed?

As Kubrick was expecting, most watched with their Eyes Wide Shut, looking for the thrilling sex scenes, displays of nudity, cultured exchanges. The name of the film was given not just to reflect its characters, who go through life with their eyes wide shut, but the audience as well. The movie and its characters are nothing short of a reflection on us, the audience.

And really, what better way to show not only the ills of society but the interpersonal workings of Empire, then through the backdrop of sex – or rather, tantalizing sexual encounters, uncomfortable sexual spaces, and dehumanizing displays of sexuality?

This film is brilliant and requires hours of review to understand its multiple, overlapping messages. Hence, in offering this review I have relied heavily on the analyses of those who did spend hours upon hours discovering Kubrick’s last work of genius. Specifically, I rely on Rob Ager’s 2007 psychological analysis (which can be found on his website http://www.collativelearning.com) and even more so on Tim Kreider’s excellent sociological review in the Film Quarterly Vol 53, no 3 (found online at http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html).

As both Ager and Kreider point out, the beginning of this film hints to the viewer what to look out for. We see a well-off, good-looking New York couple on their way to a Christmas party. And their character roles are spelled out in their first lines: Bill’s “Have you seen my wallet?” and Alice’s “How do I look?” The first scene is actually of Nicole Kidman’s character stripping naked with her backside to the camera, dropping her black gown to the floor with her black high heels on, to the sound of Shastakovich. Quickly the camera blacks out and the title of the film appears, Eyes Wide Shut. As Kreider argues, this is a clear message to the audience that if you are looking for nudity and sex in this you are not seeing what this is about.

This first scene is one of several messages throughout the film that clearly link Alice to the other female characters in the film. A woman stripping off her black gown, standing naked with her black heels on – this is of course exactly the first shot in the orgy scene at the Somerton mansion: women dropping their black gowns to stand naked with their high heels on. In fact, most of the women in the film are shown naked and all have remarkably similar bodies – light-skinned, thin and tall. Their bodies look like mannequins, rubbery and unreal. And like the prostitute Mandy and the dead prostitute at the morgue, Alice was clearly into self-medicating – getting drunk from champagne at Victor’s party, getting high with her husband from marijuana, smoking alone at home.

And the men? As reviewers have commented, throughout Bill is seen in one money transaction after another. In a span of forty-eight hours he spends hundreds of dollars. And throughout Bill is seen lying to his wife. And it is not just Bill lying, but we have reason to believe of course that Victor is lying at the end. What reviewers failed to catch is the equally ubiquitous scenes of Bill showing his New York State Medical Board Card. He shows his ID to gain access and information, and if anyone knows anything about American society, this is particularly odd in informal settings. The oddness of this gesture is of course revealed in the reactions of the people to whom he shows his ID, and the point Kubrick is trying to make is that Bill is ‘seeking access’ through his social status as materialized in the ID.

The oddness or absurdity of it is that, for all of their wealth and sophistication, Bill and Alice are still members of the vast serving class. Bill is the tragic hero. His perceived status crumbles before our eyes as the thin veil of respectability and glamour of Victor and the elite gang vanishes and reveals itself quickly as a lifestyle of deception, excess and murder.

Kubrick accomplishes this tragedy in part by going to great lengths to make the visual connection between Victor (i.e. the high society of New York) and the secret society at Somerton. The long hallway with the checkered floor, the encounter/greeting at the end of the hallway and the stairs in the background, the Renaissance Bronzes, “to where the rainbow ends,” and on and on.

The distinctions between the serving class and the elite also grow starker as the plot unfolds. In the beginning we know that Bill and Alice are invited to Victor’s grand ball because Bill makes house calls. Then by the end Victor spells out in plain language that Bill is not one of them: He came to the mansion in a taxi and rented a tuxedo from some backdoor alley.

Bill is clearly placed with others in the serving class throughout the film. Not just in the scene in which both he and his college buddy, Nick Nightingale, are “escorted out” of the Somerton Mansion, but also, as Kreider shows in his review, in the house call visit to his patient who just died, Bill enters the luxurious apartment and he and the maid stand in symmetry – both in black and white.

As the plot unfolds we see the limitations of Bill’s access. We see him behind bars at the Rainbow Costume store, but he is able to buy his way in. He is able to get access to the orgy ceremony because his friend gives him the password. But in the end he is thrown out of Somerton and not allowed back in (he stands behind bars again) because he doesn’t know the “other password.” As Victor admits, there isn’t a second password – and that is exactly the point. No matter if you have extra cash or have some friends ‘in the know’ or have professional credentials, there is no password you have to learn or gain access to to become a part of the ruling elite.

As the tragedy unfolds the likes of Victor become more closely aligned with not just a ruling elite, but an imperial elite, as Kreider eloquently points out. The first sign is at the Rainbow store when the store owner’s prostitute daughter whispers into Bill’s ear, “You should have a cloak lined with ermine.” Historically ermine fur was prized and worn by European royalty.



And of course the scene at the Rainbow store segues into the orgy scene at the Somerton Mansion, which is full of old European Imperial imagery – the Moorish palace of Somerton, the masks of the participants, the portraits of royalty flanking the walls. The film after all is an adaptation of Austrian novelist Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story of turn-of-the-century Viennese decadence. However, Kubrick also intended to make the imperial dimensions of wealth and power in our contemporary times more obvious, and perhaps he also wanted to show the continuity of empires.

As the plot progresses and Bill finds himself not only denied entry but faced with threats of violence against himself and his family, Bill’s relationship with others in the serving class is noteworthy as his personal safety and well-being deteriorate. The reviewers didn’t comment on Bill’s relationship with Nick Nightingale. The Nightingale who flies away: the only two conversations between them end abruptly short with Nick’s “gotta go.” We in the serving class indeed have so little time for one another. And in the end we get screwed: Domino the prostitute contracts HIV, not from Bill but from someone like him. Nick disappears when Bill gets caught. Those serving at the orgy escort Bill to “his capture.”

In other words, we are not just screwed but we are complicit. At what appears to be a stab at New York high society is more generally a critique of the professional classes who think of themselves as cultured and ‘above’ the insecurity and moral depravity of the lower classes. Again, Kubrick made pains to show Bill as part of a larger serving class, living in the end just as precariously as the rest.

And of course in the backdrop of Christmas trees and lights, Kubrick offers a harsh criticism of the consumer society. As Agar and Kreider point out, displays on the wall are intended to reflect the reality within. The wall in Victor’s bathroom: the huge portrait of the woman lying naked, and the prostitute lying naked on the couch. The walls of Alice and Bill’s apartment are full of flowers and other objects: to consume. The walls at Somerton are covered in portraits of aristocracy.

The spectacular consumerism of Christmas is the perfect visual backdrop of a film depicting a twisted society. We indeed do not consume without consequence.

At the end of the film, in which Bill and Victor have a ‘heart-to-heart’ in Victor’s billiard, Bill says to Victor sarcastically, “What kind of fuckin’ charade ends with someone turning up dead?!” The pause and the message: In Empire of a capitalist variety “the charade” that is the very foundations of wealth and power does end up with people dead. Literally and figuratively.

Kubrick leaves the plot unsolved and for a reason. Did Nick return home or was he "disappeared" for good? Did Mandy the prostitute die from a drug overdose or was she "sacrificed"? It is like Kubrick is saying, “Really, how much of a difference does it make if someone killed Mandy for political expediency or if she died from a social plague – drug use and abuse?” She is still dead and no one is held responsible.

The charade becomes partially revealed for Bill and Alice. When Bill comes home he turns off the Christmas tree lights and finds his mask on the bed. As Agar argues, this scene shows us that the gloss and glitter of the high life have worn off for Bill, and that the mask he wears in his life has become known to him – and he breaks down.

The charade of harmlessness becomes only partially revealed to them though. In the very last scene at the shopping mall Alice says that essentially they should be grateful to survive. The assumption is that she is referring to their relationship (they are still caught up in their interpersonal drama), but the broader implication is of course they have survived as members of the high society in the peace and security of their personal fiefdoms, exactly because they allow the crimes to be committed and go unpunished. They in the end won’t publicly disclaim the story told.

And when Alice says that what they need to do right away is FUCK, this is not just about them and society drowning away their problems in the pleasure and ecstasy of sex. That is of course part of it. Much more, though, to fuck is to be fucked.

Generosity and Beggary in the Month of Ramadan

Now that Ramadan is over, I briefly reflect on what I experienced. The most vivid impression I have this year is of the juxtaposition of generosity and beggary during the month of Ramadan.

People were even more willing to assist me as a foreigner, even when I did not ask for it. Most of the time I found this charming, occasionally I found it aggravating. “Ya 3m, ana ma talubtsh min’ak ei haga!” (“Yeah Uncle, I did not ask anything from you!”) I found myself wanting to say. “Ana 3arafa. Ana sakana hena.” (“I know. I live here.”) I would say at times in exacerbation.

Most of the time, though, peoples’ extended generosity was welcomed and warmly appreciated. And at times it was sorely needed. The public transit system seemed to change overnight with the start of Ramadan. One night I left downtown late, thinking it would be no problem getting home, only to discover that I was relying on local residents to get home because the way back was surprisingly unclear!

The month of Ramadan is a month of giving. And buying. On the day of Eid the children and teenagers take over the streets and the metro. They play outside in their new clothes, with their new toys. As a sister of a colleague of mine told me on Eid, when I asked her how people felt on Eid as we were heading to her brother’s place, children are happy because they are given new clothes and new toys, and adults are unhappy because they have to buy them. Indeed, Eid is for the young.

Of course as someone who comes from a tradition of commercialized Christmas, I understand well the stress of gift-giving during holiday times.

More than that, with commercialized Eid comes the Wretched of the Earth seeking out a meagre existence. Particularly during the last week of Ramadan, when scores of people went out shopping for Eid gifts, scores of beggars came out onto the streets. Or at least that is how it felt. I don’t think I saw as many beggars during Ramadan as I had seen the entire past year. And so many children.

In my daily routine I rarely see street children or children begging, so when I went to Doqqi, a fairly well-off neighborhood of downtown Cairo, during Ramadan and saw so many street children I was reminded that, yes, according to statistics there are over 1 million street children in Cairo alone. And just the week before, I had found myself trying to convince an Egyptian friend of mine that actually there aren’t that many street children in Egypt. I mean, compared to India or Brazil or war-torn countries. Really, everything is relative. Huh? Say that again, Marion?

Imperial Haze, Part II

In his famous poem Ozymandias, Percy Shelley only got it partly right:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


Shelley shows us the foolishness of man, so limited and so impotent compared to the boundlessness of the sands. So foolishly proud is the emperor. Indeed, just as surely as our own selves will slip away with time will even the mightiest of empires decay.

And what remains is the beauty of the sculptor; the hands that create. The creation outlives the man. The life that remains is in the art.

And oh how commanding is that which remains! Empires may surely fall but not without effect. Their restored remains (and all that is left behind ‘for posterity’s sake’) tell powerful narratives, woo audiences with their beauty and become the centerpieces of made-up histories. The victors may be in a colossal wreck but do not be deceived, dear Shelley, as they continue to write history and wield marked power in our contemporary times.

Of course it is the reconstruction of these remains in roughly the past century and a half, coupled with the written texts left behind by the victors, that has had such an influence on our contemporary reading of the past. The reconstruction and the interpretation have been deeply embedded in processes of memory creation, as the British empire and then new nation states actively tried to create their histories.

I am often reminded of this living in the ‘Land of the Pharaohs’. That is Pharaohs with a capital “P” no less. The imperial time of the Pharaohs has perhaps received unprecedented reconstruction efforts. Even an entire discipline and many sub-disciplines have been created to study this time. An entire nation was granted partial independence (Egypt in the 1920s) in part because of its remains. Millions of people make a living off of its display. An entire national economy is based on the selling of the Pharaonic past.

More than that, people take the ancient past of this place to be the past of the Pharaohs. How often the Pharaohs are conflated with “the ancient Egyptians” is mind boggling. We are bedazzled by the remains: gold, jewelry by the dozen, aesthetic catacombs, hidden chambers. They capture the modern imagination: How could they? How did they? What beauty!

As if all the peoples of this region during this vast time frame had such an elaborate burial, their catacombs stuffed with gold and jewelry and animal protectors!

How frequently I have heard the human past equated with the constructed Pharaonic one is even more disturbing. Such fetishization of the remains leaves the bedazzled in a stupor. The mark of the slave and serving classes is masked by the beauty of the art that remains.

I am perhaps more reminded of the decadence of the ruling classes and the their history in the making when I leave or come back to my home in Cairo. Most ways pass by the Citadel with the Mohamed Ali Mosque jutting out into the skyline. When I am making my long way home, I get dropped off in a dust and smoke filled field of cement. Its night and its dark. I walk along beside an overpass and next to a wall (probably from the same period as the mosque), making my way to the transportation hub in Sayeda Aisha to catch my next micro-bus. And there above me, on top of the hill, shining above like a full moon, is the lit Mohamed Ali Mosque. It takes my breath away almost every time. Amidst such grime, such coldness, there is this stunning beauty lighting up the sky.

Cough.

Well, that is precisely what Mohamed Ali was aiming for. He didn’t create the Mosque for God and then name it after himself. He was the man who ripped thousands of farmers from their land, enslaved them in his army and then denied them a proper burial; forced thousands of other farmers to cultivate cotton; gave land and favors to his political allies; and the list of atrocities under his reign goes on. He was the man who reaped injustice in this land – and as the historian Khaled Fahmy argues, for the sake of him and his family.

But in that haze of nation building and national history creation, Mohamed Ali became the founder of modern Egypt (which had something to do with the mosque and other remains left behind). And now the grand Mosque is a major destination in Cairo, not just for tourists but for school children. It is with awe that they look upon “his creation” and in that awe the history is told as if he himself was telling it.

The Imperial Gaze

“As for the rest of the category which cultivated
no sciences, they are more like animals than human beings.
Those of them who live deep in the north – between the
end of the seven climates and the confines of the habitable
world – have been so affected by the extreme distance
from the sun from the Zenith above their hands, resulting
in cold climate and thick atmosphere, that their temperaments
have become chilly and their humors rude. Consequently their
bodies are huge, their color is pale and their hair long.
For the same reason they lack keenness in intelligence and
perspicacity, are characterized by ignorance and stupidity.
Folly and blindness prevail among them as among Slavs, Bulgars,
and other neighboring peoples.”

From an 11th century Arab writer, writing at the height of the Muslim Empire, gazing down upon those other peoples in the North. That is, in present-day Northern Europe.
(Said al-Andalusi, Kitab Tabaqat al-Uman, taken from Szyliowicz’s 1973 Education and modernization in the Middle East)

A thousand years earlier, in present-day Britain, the Roman Pro-Council Agricola looks upon a map of the Empire’s newly conquered (and yet to be conquered) northern territories with one of his advisors. Agricola points to the map in the direction of the island of Ireland.

Agricola: Do we occupy it?

His advisor: No, we don’t. It is not worth occupying. The people are primitive. There are marshlands. We sent people to scout it out. Really, it is not worth occupying.

Agricola: I think this is where you are wrong, because an unoccupied land gives ideas to people who live in occupied lands.

(Tacitus’s account from his biography of Agricola, taken from Tariq Ali’s 2003 “War, Empire and Resistance” lecture at UC Berkeley, available in full at google video)

As Tariq Ali reminds us, up until the 18th century most wars were fought by empires or between empires. Empires self-sustain and self-destruct themselves, conquering newer lands to, as Agricola would put it, avoid giving ideas to those already occupied.

From the seat of Empire one gazes upon the others with feelings of superiority, and from the periphery intense rivalries wage between newly demarcated groups of conquered peoples.

Empires make wars, conquer lands and are governed by intense processes of othering. The others, even the most ‘backward’ of the lot, are forced within to play a role in a hierarchical system from center to periphery.

The intense hierarchies of our time are indeed not timeless, even though they may feel so. They are certainly not part of some amorphous “human nature.” Even if, as I heard argued recently, the Pharaoh’s show us a preferential system for lighter-skinned females! More than anything, the racism and marked inequalities of our times reflect the sickness and self-destructiveness of empire building.

Al Khouf

This is a Moroccan hip hop song about fear. Released in 2006. Brilliant. Bigg, the singer, has since been playing songs about gang rivalries and showing videos of him driving around in fancy cars. But this song still shows what hip hop can offer. Thanks to my husband for the translation :)

FEAR Refrain: Noooo more FEAR Your heads up free Moroccans and say no more fear!
Throw your hands up those who have no fear in their hearts!
I’m afraid of the cop, I’m afraid of the municipality and I’m afraid of those who have money.
You are afraid of everything but you have no fear from Allah.

Bigg:
There is someone who fears a cop.
There is someone who is afraid of the municipality.
There is someone who fears “lamqdam” (assistant of the local governor).
And there is someone who has immunity.
There are those among you who are afraid of me.
There are those among you who are afraid about me.
There are those who were arrested unjustly.
There are those who bombed themselves.
There are those who represent a party.
There are those represent themselves.
There are those who just act in front of the people.
There are those who clean their molars (refers to rich people who clean their teeth after having a big a meal).
There are those who have stolen the money of remote towns.
There are those who denied that they have robbed public money.
There are those who curse girls in their CDs, and forgot that they themselves insult God.
There are those who follow my words.
There are those who are worried about me because of what I say.
There are those who died in front of my eyes.
There are those who killed and got away with it.
There are those who govern unjustly because they belong to the elite.
There are those who govern unjustly and their friends have been oppressed in the media.
There are those who gain a billion and can’t give away one Dirham.
There are those who make one Dirham that gives them a headache.
There are those steal public funds and they sound like beggars.
There is the journalist who writes in ' Telquel' and was arrested. (Telquel is a progressive Moroccan magazine that has been struggling against censorship laws in Morocco)
Brother journalist, we are with you.

Refrain: Fearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
There are those who are afraid of a cop.
There are those who are afraid of the municipality.
There are those who shake in front of them.
There are those who curse God.
There are those who understand their circumstances.
There are those who feel their concerns.
There is the taxi driver who smokes cigar in front of them.
There are those who were arrested.
There are those whose minds are clean and those whose minds are dirty.
There are those like me, holding on to a microphone.

All young men don’t vote on the day of elections.
Everyone steals their money. Everyone steals our money.
And gossip is circulating around.
Someone has slaughtered a bull. (During elections season, rich candidates throw lavish parties and invite those are eligible to vote).
Someone has slaughtered a cow.
What about those who have slaughtered us???????? Ohhhhh ohhhhh this year there is no money to create more jobs.
Ohhhhh ohhhhh you have stolen the money of this country.

Refrain:
Take my first finger, the second too, the third is up and you know where the fourth is.
If we follow what they say, they are going to close our mouths.
They are going to close your mouths.
Development, development, human development...half of the wealth is for you and the other half is for me.
Underground hip-hop until death.
I love my country.
Are you ashamed of sharing wealth and power?
I don’t want you to be afraid since you have done nothing wrong.
Fear has been planted within us by our grandfathers and it grows up within us.
We must stop being afraid.
We have to stop being slaves of money.
I’m a Moroccan with hot blood in my veins.
I’m ready to kill all those who steal our money.

Refrain:
2006 my brother, the sun goes down...goes down in death. We don’t need those who don’t wish good for us.
Hey! brother, a real Moroccan is with you.

Press TV

I wonder if one can disown the Left of one’s own country?…uh, but wait a second, I am an American and there is no Left from which to disown myself. Ouch.

You may be wondering if decades ago they were killed off and imprisoned and tortured as they were in Morocco, Argentina, Indonesia…hmm…not exactly. Months ago, at around the time of the US presidential elections, I tried to explain to a Moroccan friend why the elections were an extravaganza, a spectacular show, with Obama a mere character of the showmasters. And he asked me, “But where is the Left?” I stumbled, in Arabic and in dismay. Ah, well, you see, uh, there really isn’t a democratic system and people have two options and not really and the corporate media is dominant and people want to believe their nation isn’t racist and there is trauma and demonization of Bush and, well, uh…

And for a moment I felt so alone.


When we found Press TV on our tely, I was intrigued. Another picking from the measly English news channels BBC, Aljazeera, CNN. When my mind is strained from trying to comprehend OTV and Mehwar and other 3mmeya-based channels, I turn to see what is being fed that day in the mainstream. Moving on quickly enough I then stop on Press TV.

One of the first programs I watched on Press TV was a brilliant documentary on peasants struggling against landlords and for land reform in the Philippines. I later found there are programs run by George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley and Tariq Ramadan, all personalities with whom I am familiar.

I was even more intrigued when we discovered that the channel was Iranian and funded by the Iranian government. And even more intriguing that it is mired in controversy! Press TV has been criticized for being anti-semitic, biased, a handler for the Iranian government. The list goes on.

And quickly enough I have grown bored. Maybe that is because when I turn to watch it more often than not I happen to turn to the program “The American Dream” (by timing not interest, of course). And the Americans on this program and most of the other news/social commentary programs I have seen seem to be, well, if not straight from the mainstream, then the non-left Left.

To illustrate this point, a week or so ago the show was devoted to the current US imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The discussion being devoted mostly to the military logistics of the war. One of the guest call-ins, a publisher, presented herself as a peace activist, against both wars, and said with exacerbation something like, “The Afghanistan War is going to be Obama’s Vietnam. And that is really sad for Obama.”

Huh, say it again? You are sad about the war for Obama’s sake? How about being outraged about a war that has killed thousands, has disrupted the lives of thousands, disturbed thousands of villages, violently carved out an eco-landscape, destabilized a region – and will continue to do so?

About a week ago on another program based in Beirut (perhaps “Middle East Today”), the program was devoted to Palestine-Israel under the Obama administration and the guest speaker was an American journalist based in Beirut. The guest speaker acknowledged that any improvement in relations, any steps toward a two-state solution, look bleak. The Israeli government under Netanyahu is not going to make the concessions it needs to. The Press TV correspondent asks him about the Obama Administration. The American journalist responds that the administration perhaps made a mistake by focusing on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as this issue is not that important to Israelis. (And on and on.) But really given how much Obama has on his hands, he is doing what he can. You know, he really has his hands full –

yeah, and we know of what.