Author Archives: Arab America

Thomas On Selflessness

Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others.

Danny Thomas, entertainer

Source: news.investors.com

Reem Acra Fall 2015 Collection pic.twitter.com/8iRVZoojtE

Source: twitter.com

Imagine a group of people who rape.  Enslave.  Maim.  Murder.  Ethnically cleanse.  Extort.  Burn.  Behead.  But then imagine this—they don’t lie?  Can’t lie.  Won’t lie.  That’s what Graeme Wood’s recent Atlantic essay, “What ISIS Really Wants,” really wants us to believe.

That a movement that has earned the world’s nearly universal opprobrium for its grotesque violence and wickedness is nevertheless honest in describing why it does what it does.  I beg to differ.  The only Muslims who think ISIS represents Islam, or even Muslims, are ISIS themselves.

That’s the first thing everyone needs to know about “the Islamic State.”  And the second?  If you want to know why ISIS exists, don’t bother searching Islamic texts, or examining Islamic traditions.  The real reason ISIS happens is because of what keeps happening to Muslims.

The Incomparability of Civilizations

There’s almost no comparison between Islam and the West.  For one thing, Islam is a religion.  The West obviously is not.  But even the countries of the world that are Muslim-majority don’t compare to the West.  For all this fearful talk of a global Muslim Caliphate, it’s the West that has made real progress in creating transnational institutions.

There’s no Muslim counterpart to the European Union, the Schengen Treaty, NATO, the G-20—a Western initiative—or the many bilateral and multilateral agreements and processes that make the West what it is.  Nor is this exclusively a mark of the Muslim world: You think China, Brazil or India enjoys the alliances we do?  The kinds of integration that make our societies so prosperous and powerful?

The world’s Muslim-majority societies are remarkably diverse—much more so than the West, I’d argue.  Which is all fine, in theory, until you get to the practice.  These very different peoples are going through our equivalent of the dark ages, the consequence of centuries of colonialism, occupation, authoritarianism and extremism.

As Muslim societies struggle to find their way forward, everything is up for grabs.  What kind of government should they have?  What role should religion play?  How should power be divided?  Very little is agreed on.  One of them is this: Among an incredibly diverse, astonishingly fractured and contentious community, ISIS is anathema.

Source: www.salon.com

Kofia – Leve Palestina, Krossa Sionismen

Source: www.youtube.com

After several hours of debate on Tuesday night, the student government at the University of Toledo in Ohio shut down a hearing on a resolution to divest from firms abetting Israel’s crimes.

Just before the vote was to take place by the student senate, the university’s Student Judicial Council, part of the student government, announced that it had ruled a resolution calling for divestment “unconstitutional” on the grounds that it was “discriminatory” and “one-sided.” The ruling allowed no recourse or debate and the entire vote was then scrapped.

As The Electronic Intifada reported, the university administration had insisted that discussions relating to the resolution be conducted in a secretive manner.

Source: electronicintifada.net

The Hollywood Reporter is doing a series of interviews with voting members of the Academy, the folks who decide who gets an Oscar. Yesterday’s (anonymous) interviewee had this to say about why Selma didn’t get a nod:

“First, let me say that I’m tired of all of this talk about ‘snubs’ — I thought for every one of [the snubs] there was a justifiable reason. What no one wants to say out loud is that Selma is a well-crafted movie, but there’s no art to it. If the movie had been directed by a 60-year-old white male, I don’t think that people would have been carrying on about it to the level that they were.
“And as far as the accusations about the Academy being racist? Yes, most members are white males, but they are not the cast of Deliverance — they had to get into the Academy to begin with, so they’re not cretinous, snaggletoothed hillbillies. When a movie about black people is good, members vote for it. But if the movie isn’t that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has black people in it?
“I’ve got to tell you, having the cast show up in T-shirts saying ‘I can’t breathe’ [at their New York premiere] — I thought that stuff was offensive. Did they want to be known for making the best movie of the year or for stirring up s***?”

Source: www.npr.org

Muslim Advocates has compiled a comprehensive list of resources that can be used to report hate crimes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To find where to report hate crimes in your state, select your state from the list below. If you need any assistance in reporting a hate crime in your state, please contact us.

Source: www.muslimadvocates.org

See this important reference for reporting a hate crime in your state from Muslim Advicates.

The Northwestern University student body has narrowly passed a resolution calling on the university to divest from six corporations which, according to the resolution’s sponsors, violate Palestinian human rights.

The resolution, which was sponsored by the NUDivest campus organization, is only a recommendation to university officials and does not represent a policy change, The Daily Northwestern website reported.

Northwestern University has campuses in Evanston and Chicago in Illinois, in the United States.

The companies involved are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Hewlett-Packard, G4S, Caterpillar and Elbit Systems. Divestment supporters maintained that products from these companies are used by Israel in human rights violations in the Palestinian territories.

The resolution passed with 24 votes in favor and 22 votes against, with three abstentions, following more than five hours of debate.

Source: www.haaretz.com

Tony Shalhoub, 61, starred in TV’s “Wings” and “Monk,” and has appeared in more than 50 films, including “Barton Fink” and “Too Big to Fail.” He currently is starring with Diane Lane in “The Mystery of Love and Sex” at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. He spoke to Marc Myers.

Talk about pressure. My father came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 1920 when he was 8 without knowing a word of English. He traveled to Green Bay, Wis., married, bought a house, and he and my mom, Helen, raised 10 kids. Everything depended on his one-man business driving a truck.

Source: www.wsj.com

Established in 1978, United Palestinian Appeal, Inc. (UPA) is dedicated to providing aid to Palestinians in need, especially children, in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Source: helpupa.org

10 Celebrities You Forgot Were Lebanese

By Kelly Sadek

If there’s something that 90% of  Lebanese people possess, it’s pride. This is especially true when they find out that an internationally famous celebrity originates from Lebanon and it just so happens that said celebrity is their mother’s second cousin’s classmate (we all know you’re lying Tante Janine).

Anyway, to increase your ‘general’ knowledge on Lebanese culture, here’s a list of 10 international celebrities you forgot were Lebanese, or at least have Lebanese roots:

Source: tribunelau.com

Only recently, America imagined that it had entered the “post-racial” era. But with discourse on social injustice spreading across the country and forcing a discussion in the corporate media about everything from mass deportations to Islamophobia to police brutality, it is clear that phrase represented a pipe dream. 

You only have to look to Ferguson to see why. This suburb of Saint Louis has become the epicenter of nationwide protests against hyper militarized police forces that target communities of color. And I have been there since the beginning, watching them unfold against a backdrop of police violence targeting the poor and people of color.

In one of the most amazing shows of solidarity, the people of Palestine and Ferguson are reaching out to each other because they are fighting a common system of injustice, control and racism.

Source: www.alternet.org