Be. so. Good.

Submission

2010-05-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

www.muslima.com

“Total submission is a kind of freedom.”
…says a billboard at schipol airport. I noticed as I waited, yet again, for KLM to put me back on the plane they forgot I was supposed to have a seat on. The proverb made me think about arranged marriages. An acquaintance of mine once had a discussion with a Sri Lankan chef, during which he presented her with the following questions in argumentation for arranged marriage.

• When was the last time you were happy with your dating life?
• Why do you get in relationships, and why do they usually end?
• How often did your relationship not end well and why?
• What do you expect from a relationship? What is truthfully your ultimate goal in dating?

The essence of this claim is perhaps that with too many choices we are never satisfied. We always dream of something better, thus nothing is ever good enough, and we miss our ultimate relationship target, which for many people is security. Imagine not having to stress around with all this dating bull. When we get to pick ourselves, how large are the odds of picking wrong? We are amazingly young and dumb after all. The chef proves how submission can be liberating in certain situations. Paradoxically, some of the experiences that make us feel most free involve giving in to forces we cannot control. For example acting on intense emotion, like screaming at your parents after all these years, crying till you pass out or kissing someone as if to say yes, you going on that exchange for the next three months is the end of the world and the universe as I know it.

Love is arguably the strongest of these uncontrollable force. There is no fighting true love say the fairytales. We nurse secret dreams of ‘the one’ - a someone who, by divine design, compliments us in every way. Now if there really is such a one, which I must say I believe even the most cool and calculating of us secretly hope that there is, and you and the one are by the universe itself designed for one another, then nothing can be done to stop it. If love is invincible, and you are in love, then you are in effect controlled by love. Love is the greatest submission. Further, however indefinable love is it is still on this view a force that makes you be with someone whether you like it or not. We are not free from love, and further we do not want to be. The whole set-up seems suspiciously similar to an arranged marriage. In both cases it is not your choice who you come to love. We love submitting to love as a wholly dominating force, yet we loath the idea of anything else forcing people to marry.

Of course there is a vital difference. In arranged marriages you are being told what to do by other persons, a concept which goes against liberal principles. Yet our secret belief in pre-destined love may be seen as a repressed yearning for the freedom we feel when we completely submit ourselves. Maybe, on some level, we miss that kind of freedom, existent in childhood, before the infinite line of choices appeared in the distance and blocked our horizons. We find consolation in the eternal dream of love by design, and look to submit ourselves to the inevitable dominance of that ever-elusive ‘one’. Which I guess is not such a bad thing to search for; all these choices are driving me crazy.

Closing time....

2010-02-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

...kramer?

Carnival is over.

2010-02-18T02:55:00.000-08:00

yeah and btw Raihan, Michael did that song much better. Everyone thinks so.

Fastelaven een meestreech

2010-02-18T02:39:00.000-08:00

Its carnival break in maastricht. Jesus hold me please.

carneval survival log: Day 1. Constumes aquired. The crowds are growing, though most mateys have left. They couldn't take it, but I believe we can make it unless bodies give in before the end. Wedding imminent.Still in good shape, motivation top. No major accidents. Alcohol/frites intake excessive. Hopeful for the night. Out.

Carneval log: Day 3...or 4. I believe im still alive. Which is a plus. Going out again. No longer understand why im here. Or anyone else. Resources getting scarce. Motivation mainly alcohol-based. 14 crewmates severly injured on the journey. Do NOT walk outside without alcohol intake. Serious risk to mental health. Watch out for guys dressed clockwork orange style.

Day 5. ...

Day 6. I know all you people bugged out to london or brussels or wtv but I stayed and you know what? That makes me better than you. Highlight: clockwork orange guys, newkids, tetrisblock guys, everybody with a ship on their head, Watching stoned superman feel up drunk frites-girl outside our window and barely escaping being peed on by a gorilla.

This weeks highlight

2009-12-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

Click on post-title.

Read all about it!

2009-11-30T07:43:00.000-08:00

UCMAG is out: the sustainable issue!

Buy it in the common room from tuesday for 1,50(worth it). If you happen to forget don't worry...but there will be consequences lets just put it that way...

As to Refresh Headscarf

2009-10-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

This is Fatmah Yakub (friend from school) on why she put on her headscarf.

sorry horrible quality but you get it.

We interviewed her for our sociology presentation "Hijab: a rising trend among western-raised (2nd or 3rd generation) young muslim women?"(ish.) It went ok. Just ok. Its an interesting question though.
For example, Fatmah never wore the veil when we were growing up although most of her family did. She only put it on when she moved to London for university.

Why?

Fatmah answers that she wears it to put a "barrier" between her(and her religion)and the things she finds bad (corrupting) about western society.

...But, on a larger scale, why?

Is it a counter-reaction to the extreme liberty of women in western society? Has the overdose of baby-oiled skin on TV driven the moderate to conservative? Is all the attention islam is getting in media, creating a sense of religious coherence?
Or is all of this perhaps the symbol of the hijab changing from one of religious modesty to one of defiance of a dominant culture?

I think all of the above. But then hey forced me to read Huntington's Clash of civilizations in stupid intro to academe but it made me bring my business to an EVEN larger scale:
Maybe the hijab trend is the intensification of cultural practice as we draw nearer the apparently looming clash of "western" and "Arab" civilization. Maybe people are (on some level) being forced to take sides, and further to show their loyalty to either. To tell the world that they belong to one, and therefore, according to the way things are looking now, defy the other.

...Well I don't know. There is no need to be dramatic, and this is of course no reflection on individuals.

You know the weird thing about theory, especially in social science, is that you can sit around for ages and ages and read all the Big Guys and try to find the answer and come up with out-of-this-world theories and debate them forever with other people who stayed up all night comming up with their own heavenly-blessed ideas,
OR you could call someone who is part of that trend and they tell you the answer right there just like that.

Of course its important to do the theory but really, sometimes it feels like science is just a roundabout, much longer route to all the things we somehow already know.

Now, things are falling apart like a pack of cards

2009-10-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

...siste.

woah Mario, you really cut your joints off

2009-10-05T14:38:00.001-07:00

As to change the channel

2009-10-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

Everybody loves MTV.

We may as well admit it. Stupid americans with ridiculous dramatics? Bring it on. Beyonces ass? Never looked better. Some random guys gravely offending chinese culture in a library? ...what?

Seeing these silly billys makes us all feel just a little bit better about ourselves.

But i still think its getting a bit out of hand. We should really find something better to do.

...But then when I've done that I'm tiered from doing all the better-to-do things, and then its just so relaxing to see Heidi scream at Spencer: you can't use your brain all the time can you.
When an option like MTV is put out there, there's no turning back. Our generation is doomed to watch Paris pick fights, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Its not a question of most of us being weak and pathetic and the few remaining being strong and coughcoughweird, its about...speaking through the medium of our times!

Our revolution shall be staged through MTV.
For our parents, it may have been the back of a van somewhere, covered in flowers and other plants, but for us it is through media: internet, print and even tv:
Collectively we are in control of what is shown on tv because it is answering to our demands. Which means we are actually controlling things by lying around! So don't be embarresed next time you watch Run's House reruns: by not changing the channel, you are in fact changing the world! Up and away! Yes we can!!

haha, no im just kidding. We're full of shit.

The counterplots will be showcased

2009-10-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

I actually kind of want to see it...what exactly is a flesh-eaters affair?

This kid is fantastic!

As to Judge the Myth of Third Culture Kids

2009-09-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

My friend smashed my life-lie to pieces over coffee.

We were discussing whether or not we should go to University College Maastricht, and had just discovered that whereas I thought the ”international community” of the school was a plus, my friend thought it was a big minus. Being myself born and bred in this sort of ”international community” with so-called ”third culture kids” I wanted to stick a fork in her.

“Whadyamean you don’t LIKE it??”
”Well, ” she replies ”Actually you guys kind of-”
“What.”
”-Well i mean not all of you but some...just kind of..”
Prolonged coughing.
”kind of think...that…your a whole lot better than the rest of us.”

When the screaming subsided she explained: having lived in a bunch of different places and seen a big part of the world, the ”third culture kids” understandably thought themselves fairly international, having had many experiences that a ”one culture kid” has not. And with thinking of yourself as experienced and cosmopolitan there came, she explained, a certain amount of subconscious or conscious feeling of superiority, which often lead to arrogance.

But in her view this superiority was nothing but vanity, as the hideous truth was that we weren’t in fact international at all. Yeah, we’d seen some cool stuff. Yet we move from one comfy diplomat dwelling to another. We’d gone to international schools, and the international people we met were in fact other third culture kids that had experienced other but completely parallel lifestyles. We are all from the same economic class. The only thing that varies is the colour of our four wheel drives.

You might even say, she continued, that we all kind of come from the same country (which she named Crazyland but which I here will rename...NOMADIA. Population unknown, citizens called “diplomat kids and frenz” and NOT third culture kids, language: English, which all the inhabitant will insist is NOT spoken with an American accent, even though it really is),

Whatsmore, she said, in seeking out an “international community” I was in fact not looking for internationalism at all, but just seeking out what I was used to. I was going home.

I realized that once again, in the horrible period of our acquaintance, she was right.
I felt quite indignant.
Much in the same way a adolescent skinhead feels when a kid from the neighbour town tells him his town smells like fish uterus.

I struck back; “Were not aaaaaaaaall arrogant hello!...And what’s wrong with wanting to go home?? NOMADIA is the only home we have, don’t we deserve to have a home too?”

“course you do!”

Course we did.

“But it’s just a matter of the image you have of yourself. Stop thinking your international when you all actually come from the same place. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go home and perhaps even loving your hometown, as long as you acknowledge that that is what you are doing.”
Silence.
“.......You’re a sock.”

But she was a right sock.
Having digested it a little, her argument really started to make sense. There was no reason to think yourself any cooler just for having travelled. I now think of myself as more of a smalltown girl. Who’s had her little town blown into overpriveleged pieces all over the world. And most importantly, on equal footing with the “one culture people” when it comes to value of perspective.

Only one question remains: if we’re not it, where is the “real” international community?

For that, I’m thinking you’d have to go to the low income jobs in the big city.

Flip burgers with Amani and Abdul Hassan.

But all Amani wants is his rap-tape is discovered, so that he can be an American influential capitalist like 50 cent.

Trying to see the world for what it really is, is a perplexing business, and trying to see your own position clearly is even worse.

Course this was all a big waste because I showed up on the first day of school and realized it was like 60% Germans. Or maybe it wasn't.

2009-09-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

2009-09-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

As to meet America's most hated family.

2009-09-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

They run westborough baptist church and enjoy relaxing with the family, choir singing and piqueting the funerals of dead American soldiers.
To inform everyone that God hates you, the war, the government, in fact the whole country, and that you will burn and you will burn good.
Why?

Because America to some degree accepts homosexuality. Of course most will agree that this is sick and twisted, especially with the children involved, and that this is a classic example of an inbred cult gone bad and can growl and kick and bite you in your hell-bound face.
But what fascinates me the most is that these creatures seem to thrive on the hate, and whatsmore, they seem to enjoy it. Look at those smiling faces! It seems the hostility they meet from the outside world bring them closer to each other.
Is this organic? Can humans really live completely cut of from the bigger tribe? Is it possible to build your entire existence on hate?
Except their not cut off are they. They've got each other. And look at their interaction with one another. Thats not hate at all, thats a big bunch of furry cuddly love. And they look out for each other too, i mean their practically Italians.

I think this is a fabulous piece of jornalistic work: I heart Louie Theroux! But even he cant break through their icy fortress, try as he may. Perhaps it can be called extreme differenciation?
Establishing their own identity based on the differences between them and the outside world. Or rather the hostility their met with makes them pull together and sharpen their spikes over and over and over again, untill there's nothing BUT spikes and there's no turning back.
I'm not saying we made them.
Just that isolated groups under pressure are always a terrible,terrible danger to society.

The members of the Church are extremely well-trained though, and have an attitude that seems to say "look everybody its me and my opinion.
Which is right.
No matter what."
Very self-asserting. Very show. Very...American.

ps. Here's their website too, but please do take a deep breath and get a good hold on your belief system before you look at it.

godhatesamerica

There's a handy map, where you can see just why God hates YOUR country.

ps ps. Disconcerting comment under the video:

"...as a christian i say FUCK THAT FAMILY TO HELL they are going to hell for totally jacking up the word of my god and lying about it"

2009-09-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

Pictures i took in Pretoria. I also saw a lot of birds.The picture at the very top is from there too !!!!!!!!!!!:D:D:D:D!?!?!?!! ###@@@

As to reimagine South Africa

2009-09-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

Imagine our typical idyllic suburb. Wysteria lane on acid. Now add armed guards, electric fences and laser alarms, protecting you against masses of murderous youth which, according to the local media, are lurking just outside your newborn baby’s bedroom window. Welcome to the “safety villages” of Pretoria,SouthAfrica.

My mom lives in Pretoria so I go there for christmas.

It really feels like you've climbed into a time-machine when you actually see your khaki wearing boer shaking what his mama gave him, followed by a black guy in rags carrying a tonn of shopping and looking very prosecuted indeed.

Crime is a lucrative business, as it seems to be in a lot of places, but the exceptional thing about crime in Pretoria is that it is calculated and full of hate. The robotic woman on my mothers car GPS sometimes goes:

"DANGERZONE! DANGERZONE! CHANCE OF BEING ROBBED...60 PERCENT."

Lock doors and hide all food.

Youth gangs angs run wild, so the upper classes wall themselves in to safety villages, little towns with maximum security and an absurdly rich life.
The safety village is a bubble-world, full of artificial streets and rosebushes, where the citizens are supposed to feel safe.

But why is it that behind a wall, an electric fence, a laser alarm downstairs, bars on the windows and four doors between me and the livingroom I still can't sleep?

Because when you’re in a place that is built not despite but because of brutal crime, you are constantly reminded that you are in grave, grave danger.

Crime itself becomes the very foundations of the place: the lifestyle is built around avoiding crime. Which means that, ironically enough, if you take away brutal crime and this whole little society falls apart.

How do you live with no trust?

Never mind the rich, what is violent crime doing to the b-..poorer communities, where there are no electric fences?

In a seemingly unbreakable circle of violence-triggers-hate-triggers-violence, where does one intervene for lasting change?

I was fascinated by the idea that people spend there entire lives like this and talked to some neighbors and other people, which resulted in an article published in a lame teen section of a Norwegian newspaper (unfortunatly in Norwegian but I'll try put up an english version as well):
Norwegian published version
English version

As to meet Tata iznogood

2009-09-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

So this is me nice to meet you looove your bracelet where d'you get it. Sometimes people call me Bob. Hey hows annie?

2009-09-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hellon schmelkom

2009-09-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

...As to not get your knickers in a twist when you realize that this is NOT your average electronic diary. Looking for juicy gossip? Go to next blog. I will not mention my monday morning blues. Never be sarcastic about my shopping addiction. Keep schtum about my gentle crushes and personal economic crisis. Of my nonexistant-for-months-and-even-then-only-once sexlife...
I will say nothing.
No.
For I present to you a thought blog and webportfolio, created solely to inspire you to think even more reflective thoughts of your own. True story. No more mindless reading about lopsided Mathilda's mop issues. I share my relaxed meditations on both heavy and light topics in our world to kickstart a brain on standby.To lift those screen-reflecting eyes of yours. well ok and also entertain you a little bit-HEYHOHEY! Welcome! Don't agree with some of my views, please do comment, my
goal is to make us all wonderers. pioneers. searchers. clueless?
Now if you'd be so good to all join hands and sway like they did in the fifties because i hereby open this blog with the greatest song since . I think its time
for the smiley. Here it is.

...:)