A Postmodern Invitation: Modernity Is a Holy Practical Joke

Author: Devil Finch Copyright © 2008
Blog: www.devilfinch.blogspot.com
Location: Kuwait

What good has modernity done for us? Have we, humans, become more civilized? Modernity has helped us to invent cures for different diseases, but it has also created Cancer, HIV, Bird Flu, Mad Cow’s Disease and tragically failed to cure Bo lowyooh and Khaz Baz.

Modernity helped us beat distance with cars, trains, and airplanes, but it screwed the planet from behind, and within 2-3 generations, Planet Earth will be Planet Wasteland. Trust me, it won’t be as pretty as T.S. Elliot’s poem, and you are not going to be driving your Cayenne or sailing your yacht to anywhere nice.

Modern thinkers created democracy and human rights. Hoooorraaay … All humans will live in justice. But wait, the presumably most democratic country, and the world’s claimed human rights’ defender is the US, and it has caused only recently more death and destruction than the bad deeds achieved by Bin Laden, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Dr. Evil, Grandayzar, Mr. Freez, Al-Hajjaj, Khomainy, Nabba6at Bosamra and Um 9achmat 7ammod, all combined.

You might say Americans are fakes, and Europeans are for real. Modernity is the product of Europe a9lan - you might say this while toying with your PowerBook- and if one is looking for democracy, one should be talking about Europe. Come on guys. We all know it. Europe still stinks with racism (no generalization meant here). The Jews learned that before us, and from a quick look at European governments’ new policies concerning Muslims in their countries and the statements’ of Pope Abendectictactoc XIV, I think another Holocaust (Yes, it’s a Spa) is going to take place in Europe. Muslims will be invited there for a warm dialogue of civilizations.

Back to modernity. Yes, modern thinkers came up with feminism (Yaaaaaay). Chicks now can kick boys’ asses with some smart, sassy talk about how uncivilized men seek to oppress women and how chicks should get up and stand up to make men lie on their bellies while having sex with their female partners. Some men liked the idea …why not? Feminism is sexy for some men because they would like to try how it feels to be spanked.

Unfortunately, 13% of females, who came up with the idea and fostered it, were too high to implement it. 25% were jealous because the idea was not theirs, so they decided to dub feminists “Godless Bitches.” 38% were married and were too busy raising their kids and making sure that their husbands were not cheating on them. 29% are still arguing about the definition of feminism (I actually heard a nice lady saying that feminism is the religion for HM Madonna’s worshippers), and 80% are busy looking for Mr. Whoever, who will make them hate sex and metamorphose into heartless Femi-nazis.

Modernism, modernity, Mo6ern, Mo-dren-dren (Tarrik or dig heren), call it whatever you want. It’s a fucking bad practical joke (Ashkara Dagga). If we are now modern creatures living a modern life with better standards and more civilized concepts and relationships, how come men still dominate every fucking aspect of this world? Let’s examine the mating system in modern life as it is the most basic male-female relationship.

From my personal experience (nothing scientific), I know that many women - both eastern and western- feel more attracted to stronger men. Many of them also would like to see their men’s power/authority practiced in their relationships as proof of this claimed power. Why?

Jumping from personal experience to science, I’d like to mention that stronger male mammals mate with more females. In more common words, stronger male mammals get laid more often. That had been scientifically proven as I was told in an ‘animal behavior’ class back in college.

Biologists also say that female mammals are more attracted to stronger males because they can provide them with security/protection, especially when they’re parenting. One strategy practiced by male mammals to attract females is bluffing. Several studies have revealed that male mammals with better bluffing skills get more pu#*y than others, which tells me that females do buy into the stupid male bluffing.

Moreover, according to uncle Darwin, humans are mammals. I’m convinced that many women (no generalization being made) feel safer when their partners push them around. As I earlier said, it is proof -be it real or false- of their men’s power and ability to protect them and their kids. Let me make another personal note: In all of the gay/lesbian couples I encountered during my college years, one of the partners would be the bossy/strong and the other partner enjoyed being pushed around. Now, that tells me something about relationship-dynamics in our civilized era.

You may plausibly argue that we are not mere mammals, but we are unique, articulate human beings who create laws and negotiate to achieve peace. I would argue back that this is an illusion. According to a statistic published in the Sept./Oct. 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs Journal (I’m not making this up - not this one.), the latest century was the bloodiest ever. Hulaku’s era sounds like a fairy tale, compared to the warfare and killings we, human beings, have committed during our “civilized” era.

Wake up people. Grass is more comfortable than asphalt and concrete. The sky is more spectacular than the ceiling in San Lorenzo’s Church. Let’s get naked and run back to the forest. Let’s start all over. We might find a nicer path.

That’s an honest romantic invitation to postmodernism that you shouldn’t take seriously.

The DV (Light Return)

Author: Devil Finch Copyright © 2008

Blog: www.devilfinch.blogspot.com

Location: Kuwait

 

“The original sin is to limit the DV. Don’t“ — Based on Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

 

I’m so tempted to start this post with a cliché. But no I shall write as sharp as a real devil finch. In fact, I should write as red as the Devil Finch - Cut-throat. And when the DV writes, you better wear a Ga7fiya, get your Misba7 ready, play an Indian lute and rap it out like a fuckin’ Brooklyn crack head while you sip on the finest French Chateau and dance Salsa.

 

On Magritte

He puts that fuckin apple on the DV’s Face and the DV picks through it. He stuffs the sky inside the DV’s eye and the DV flies through it. He bleeds the DV as a drop of rain on sad Brussels and the DV grows as wild as Oregon’s wilderness. He keeps constructing and the DV insists on destructing – or is it the opposite? The DV loves playin’ with the dead bastard. Or is it the other way around?

 

On Fai7a

“The thin-fine-blurry-bold line between a frozen hell and a burning heaven,” the DV would say if you ask him to describe Al-Fai7a. You’d think he’s - as usual - desperately trying to push the limit to the cliff. But trust him on this one because that’s where he mingled with the brain-washed Ekhwanchy, the Pattex sniffer, the son of a millionaire, mama’s boy, and all the little finches that learned to fly around with him to perch at “Ibn Rushd” public park. That’s where he got his first black eye and broke his first bone. That’s where he touched her hair for the first time, gave her the first kiss, and dared her to show her bunny and sit on his lap.  That’s where he was made.  If you insist to question the answer, refer to the only reliable witness who ironed the hell out of Fai7awis’ white masks for 20 years without burning a single Ghitra or Dishdada. Feel free to dig Jigannat out of his Karla grave, on which the tomb stone reads: “I should’ve been buried in Faihaa.”

 

On Mi Casa

Somehow the DV has developed an addiction to airports, hallucinating siestas at Eco chairs aboard airplanes, honest chats with strangers, and the random books he has picked 10 minutes before his flights. Mi Casa, as much as the DV hated national categorization, as violent as his revolt against the myth of nationalism, as strong as his urge to burn a flag on a national day, he loved settling at your eyes. 

“Why do you leave?” Mi Casa asks the DV a strikingly simple question, and he can see the lust for a complex answer in her eyes.

 

“Mi Casa, I do because you’re a home without a boundary. Because you build a cage for a devil finch and leave the door open; because you set a trap and intentionally forget to place the bait; because you have that smile of those who know better,” he answers with a husky voice as he plays Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” on his Oud. She takes that as an answer, lets it simmer over her heart and appreciates it as much as she appreciates DV’s freedom. She promises him to always be there and DV promises to always perch on her empty rifle.  The DV is her kite and she never lets that thread go. She’s the DV’s Mi Casa and he is a wicked Devil Finch. When he arrives from a wicked adventure, she sings with him and makes him a cozy place at her bed.

 

“Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.” — Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

 

Saving Isaac*

Author: Devil Finch Copyright © 2007
Location: Kuwait
Blog: www.devilfinch.blogspot.com

Confinement:
I heard my complexion for the first time.
Brilliantly simple it seemed: Alif Lam Meem.

Accusation:
A one-winged-bug flew around me while I loved thinking that I fly.
Myself coffined in my own rug knowing that I didn’t: Fie.

Judgment:
“O fantasy, you that at times would snatch us so from outward things
We notice nothing
Although a thousand trumpets sound around us
Who moves you when the senses do not spur you?“

Justification:
I hold my complexion neatly folded in my hands for those who dare: While Ishmael clung on my neck, 16*. I walked murmuring the Spider along the road until it had worked its web all the way to my exiled tongue and farther more, where a question mark grew so deep and large throwing its blue shadow over whoever’s chain-smoking these thoughts at home.

Knocking at my absence,
Abraham waited at my door.
“Does he insist to ever-enter?” I thought.
Looking through one eye,
I asked in Hebrew for the code:
“What’s aboard a bug?”
In Arabic Abraham answered:
“Don’t you people see?”
I ran to dust off my ornamented rug…
The window was all I could see…
Nothing else counted…
Not even the glass-challenged bug…
Through that window, I commanded: Fly oh my, my dirty, decayed, rug. Fly.

Post-confinement:
Riding the same spider that ate the bug’s left wing: Nooun.
Isaac, where’ll we be soon? 34*

*16. Ishmael] Isaac
*34. Isaac] Ishmael
* With lines from Dante’s Divine Comedy, (Purgatorio XXVIII).

Visions and Windows: When I Can’t Afford to See.*

Author: Devil Finch Copyright © 2007

Location: Kuwait

Blog: www.devilfinch.blogspot.com

Through the window, the sidewalks are Pavlov experimenting on corpses disguised in heavy dark jackets by melting their determined steps in the fluffiness of green ice. All drains to Wall Street except for Walt Whitman’s tear frozen in the left eye of an illiterate saint.

Resisting Pavlov with her bed on her back, the saint leads an army of outlawed words that managed to escape the death camp of “sanity.” She yells a division out: Hatmas of Ma flock together…Behold stranger we’re the newcomers. A French woman holding up an iceberg with her right hand yells back: Crazy Saint, they would put up a battle if they were alive.

Meanwhile, CNN is busy covering the rediscovery of a Sad-Dame while I-Rack is behind the window watching it all live. At the same at a split second, I make the decision to flip the channel. A 9-year-old Mohammed wakes up for the thousand and first time. Just like the first time, he possesses the ability to go through all kinds of things including the rusted barrel he was hiding behind. He looks at his little abandoned ex-body, 5.56 mm multiplied by 9 blue iron birds sleeping inside. They’ll wake up annoyingly cold before a mourner dares to close Mohammed’s wide and black ex-eyes.

Why should I mourn? The vanished power of the usual reign? Mohammed thinks looking at his abandoned body. He, then, starts venturing the streets of old Jerusalem singing: Hatmas of ma flock together…

From the wreckage of a just “suicidal” blown bus comes a voice: Behold stranger we’re the newcomers. That is the voice of 12-year-old Moses as he emerges from fire. Through ambulances, frustrated soldiers and mourning mothers, he slowly walks toward Mohammed with a smile on his face — A smile of those who are blessed to know better. They hug resting their right shoulders under each other faces. I do not hope to know again the infirm glory of the positive hour, Moses whispers while Mohammed’s eyes closed watching a silver screen playing the explosion of his brother again and again and again…as they hug. Moses gently holds Mohammed’s head between his hands passing his palms over his cheeks to wipe the tears. The crying boy smiles remembering that he knows better. And following the sitting sun, they walk together. Just as they pass through the Neo-Warsaw-Wall…

I Click my PC‘s mouse to read history: “In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers…raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin…two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula…At the village of Abu Shusha…There were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder.” The “leftist” Israeli historian goes on listing a crime after a crime.

“Massacres,” “Mass expulsions,” “Ethnic cleansing,” “War crimes.” I feel too sick, but I am not sick because: My guts are the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions which the leopards reject.

I force my eyes back to the screen. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.” Our leopard- I mean historian- comments on the process of making an omelet while licking his hands. Omelet? I thought he was talking about Human beings. Human beings? Nah, he’s just talking about some Omelet with beans. Beans? Too much asking. Geez!

I’ll tuck myself into bed. After all, I need some sleep.

For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here,

The fake Picasso portraits whisper from my bedroom walls.

I really don’t want to hear.

The whispers get louder overcoming

My scream, “I’m not here.”

I close my eyes hoping that I’ll disappear.

If I sink deep in darkness,

Maybe I wouldn’t hear or be here. Yet

the vibration of whispers invade my ears:

How could an Arab sleep?

Isn’t an Arab guilty if he sleeps?

Isn’t an Arab guilty if he doesn’t sleep?

Isn’t an Arab

Guilty?

An Arab sleeps…

An Arab Dreams and yet

Isn’t he guilty?

If he is Muslim, does he dream?

If he does, isn’t he guilty?

If…

Doesn’t.

Is…

Guilty or guilty?

I SLEEP AND I DREAM of a crucified that comes to me with

An arm to the easts.

The other to the wests.

Planted at emerging horizons

Topographically mistaken for opposite ends.

As usual, I defend myself even when asleep: I’m not the secular Muslim who betrayed his people with Zionists both seen and unseen. I’m not the pretentious poet who sold his soul to the devil pretending that I play violin. I’m not the Arab who blows himself for terror and from fear. I’m only a human being, my tongue happens to be Arabic, and I love to pretend that I’m so poetic. So pathetic, I sometimes rub my eyes with my heart hoping to melt a frozen tear. I’m the forbidden fruit yet peeled and diced. What do you want from me, Christ? Though drowned in darkness, I still hear the crucified: There are numerous prophecies of an impending explosion due to the stalemate. Even if they turn out to be true, we must plan constructively for the future, since neither improvisation nor violence are likely to guarantee the creation and consolidation of …and before he finishes the answer…Behold stranger we’re the newcomers… we’re the newcomers…Behold…

Mahatmas flock together…flock together…together…Mahatmas.

I wake up frightened and feeling guilty. I run to look through the window and to the street from where the yelling is coming. Oh crazy saint. It’s always you raving nonsense to wake me up. I posses my dark jacket getting ready to emerge into Pavlov while my exiled conscious sings:

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

* With lines from T.S. Elliot, “Ash-Wednesday” ; Quotes from Ari Shavit “The Chilling Interview of Benny Morris,” Ha’aretz, January 9, 2004; Sentences from Edward Said, “A Reply to Arab Intellectuals,” Le Monde Diplomatique August-September 1998.