Fihi Ma Fihi

real name is Sanaam, but the papers say Sanya/Sania.
Muslim.
I don't really know what to put on here. Oh! I am a confused wreck, and - to be continued

“The Dictator”

understandtheuniverse:

A douche movie capitalizing on the current focus on the middle east and north africa because of the arab spring revolts while reinforcing racial and religious discrimination. Here goes Islamophobia reaching a peak again after it seemed like it was going down. I might slap the next person that says “Omg, I can’t wait to see The Dictator. It looks so funny.”

I’ve never liked Sacha or Sasha or whatever the hell is name is. Borat left me face-palmed. He ruins the whole respect for Kazakhs, no one even knows about Kazakhstan and here he goes, slamming backward disgusting stereotypes about a group of people, he doesn’t know about and the rest of the world doesn’t know about. He disgusts me, and unfortunately i know people who have seen the Dictator and i wish i could slap them too. 

If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.

—Bill Hicks (via trichinas)

(Source: luke7nukem, via understandtheuniverse)

mohandasgandhi: fearandwar: To anyone who doesn’t see how The Dictator is part of a long history of Hollywood slandering Arabs and Muslims, read this book. Until then, I really don’t give two shits about how “it’s just comedy, dude! Stop being so serious!” One of the saddest things this book revealed to me was not just how bad the stereotypes. It’s the way even movies that have nothing at all to do with the Middle East or anything like that throw in Arab/Muslim (because in Hollywood, the two are always the same) as asides. For instance, Father of the Bride Part 2. It’s a movie about a father upset about his daughter’s pregnancy. Midway through, though, they throw in a horrible Arab/Persian stereotype of a dictatorial Middle Eastern male who is greedy, oppresses his wife, and screws over an honest white guy. That’s how Hollywood works. The Dictator is hardly alone in its racist portrayal of Arabs. Arabs are the new token villains in Hollywood films, similar to the way Russians were during the Cold War only, it’s a lot more racist. And thus we have the Timeline of International Villainy. To create drama, especially in action and war movies, Hollywood needs bad guys, and in their time, the Japanese and Germans, and later the Koreans and Vietnamese, served that role. For a long while, commies were useful foils (with their taste for world domination, nukes and vodka), but with the end of the Cold War, the Soviets became the Russians, and the Russians only worked if they were gangsters, and Hollywood already had the Italians to do that job. Colombian drug traffickers were employed as handy replacements, but then coke just felt … dated. Transnational corporate evildoers are okay, if not that sexy. But there just has been something about those Arabs. They’ve got legs. In an interview before the premiere, Shaheen says that the OPEC oil embargo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis all conspired to cast the Arab as film villain beginning in the 1970s. “We pray and we kill,” Shaheen says of the depiction. Like other stereotypes on film — of blacks, Jews, gays, Latinos, Native Americans — Arabs are now in the crosshairs. “The Arab serves as the ultimate outsider, the other, who doesn’t pray to the same God, and who can be made to be less human,” says Shaheen, who argues that movies and TV shows do matter — that they shape public opinion at home and abroad. “Do you have any idea what it must be like to be a young person watching this stuff over in the Middle East?” he says. And if you ask Shaheen who even cares about an old Chuck Norris film, he answers, “Have you ever looked through a TV Guide? These movies are on television constantly. The images last forever. They never go away.” [Source]

mohandasgandhi:

fearandwar:

To anyone who doesn’t see how The Dictator is part of a long history of Hollywood slandering Arabs and Muslims, read this book. Until then, I really don’t give two shits about how “it’s just comedy, dude! Stop being so serious!”

One of the saddest things this book revealed to me was not just how bad the stereotypes. It’s the way even movies that have nothing at all to do with the Middle East or anything like that throw in Arab/Muslim (because in Hollywood, the two are always the same) as asides. For instance, Father of the Bride Part 2. It’s a movie about a father upset about his daughter’s pregnancy. Midway through, though, they throw in a horrible Arab/Persian stereotype of a dictatorial Middle Eastern male who is greedy, oppresses his wife, and screws over an honest white guy.

That’s how Hollywood works.

The Dictator is hardly alone in its racist portrayal of Arabs. Arabs are the new token villains in Hollywood films, similar to the way Russians were during the Cold War only, it’s a lot more racist.

And thus we have the Timeline of International Villainy. To create drama, especially in action and war movies, Hollywood needs bad guys, and in their time, the Japanese and Germans, and later the Koreans and Vietnamese, served that role. For a long while, commies were useful foils (with their taste for world domination, nukes and vodka), but with the end of the Cold War, the Soviets became the Russians, and the Russians only worked if they were gangsters, and Hollywood already had the Italians to do that job. Colombian drug traffickers were employed as handy replacements, but then coke just felt … dated. Transnational corporate evildoers are okay, if not that sexy. But there just has been something about those Arabs. They’ve got legs.

In an interview before the premiere, Shaheen says that the OPEC oil embargo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis all conspired to cast the Arab as film villain beginning in the 1970s. “We pray and we kill,” Shaheen says of the depiction. Like other stereotypes on film — of blacks, Jews, gays, Latinos, Native Americans — Arabs are now in the crosshairs.

“The Arab serves as the ultimate outsider, the other, who doesn’t pray to the same God, and who can be made to be less human,” says Shaheen, who argues that movies and TV shows do matter — that they shape public opinion at home and abroad. “Do you have any idea what it must be like to be a young person watching this stuff over in the Middle East?” he says. And if you ask Shaheen who even cares about an old Chuck Norris film, he answers, “Have you ever looked through a TV Guide? These movies are on television constantly. The images last forever. They never go away.” [Source]

(via understandtheuniverse)

theneighbourhoodsuperhero:

The air of the interview and the room changes, becoming icy, as do the facial expressions and responses of Ruhal Ahmed, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee (who was released after several years of detainment with no charges), upon hearing Brandon Neely, a former Guantanamo Bay guard, confess to one of his crimes against a detainee. (Neely is sitting towards Ahmed’s left in the interview).

Neely confesses that he unjustly physically abused and injured an “older, older detainee” for jerking when he was forced down on his knees so that his handcuffs and goggles could be removed. Neely later found out that the detainee jerked because he thought he was about to be executed, as he had had family members executed in the same manner in his country.

Neely’s confession seems to have triggered emotions and memories of past experiences at the hands of guards during his detainment in Guantanamo Bay within Ahmed, who becomes withdrawn for the rest of the interview, providing short, undetailed answers despite the interviewer’s probing.

Torture and interrogation methods used on the detainees (whose ages have ranged from nine years old to ninety eight years old) in interrogation periods of over twenty consecutive hours include (but are NOT limited to) (categories do overlap):

Humiliation, mainly religious, cultural, and sexual –

being raped, made to watch other prisoners being humiliated and raped, urinated on by soldiers/guards, having menstrual blood wiped on detainees’ faces, bodies, and beards, used as a “human mop” to wipe up faeces, urine and other bodily excretions, forced nudity (during which the guards take photos to keep as trophies), being forced to watch guards and interrogators engage in sexual acts, forcibly straddled and felt up by scantily dressed female guards, forced to wear feminine clothes, forced to participate in indecent acts with other detainees and both male and female guards, having facial hair shaved, having to witness guards throw Qur’ans down to the ground and in toilets, being mocked by guards while praying, guards and interrogators employing prayer (which is a compulsory component of Islam and must be performed five times a day at specific times) as a privilege, being prevented from praying, not being allowed clean clothes, being force fed during Ramadhaan (the month in which Muslims are required to fast for a portion of the day), guards withholding blankets as they are employed as a privilege

Psychological abuse –

being taunted with the prospect of home, familial reunion, and good food, sleep deprivation, hours of interrogations, use of phobias as torture, sensory bombardment, sensory deprivation, isolation, music torture, mock executions, having to hear guards and interrogators’ threats directed at family members, especially towards female family members

Physical abuse -

being made to walk on barbed wire and shards of glass, having hot liquids poured over the head and body, being subject to electric shocks, burns (inflicted by cigarettes), long and short shackling for hours on end, stress positions, beatings, violent dogs, waterboarding, abdomen strikes

Environmental and blatant health manipulation -

extreme cold, cold cell (hypothermia), being force fed, forced injections

(Side note – respect to Neely for owning up to his crimes and apologising. Ahmed and Neely have become good friends since this interview).

(via theyoungradical)

We’re not at war with Islam. Our partnership with the Muslim world is critical.

—

Barak Obama.

Wherein partnership means open drone strikes, clandestine ops in different Muslim countries, covert bases, resource manipulation, torture-based interrogation methods for innocent Muslim men and women and minors, arms deal with tyrannic monarchies, backing up dictators in Asia and the Middle East and much more.

Great partnership.

(via mehreenkasana)

(via theyoungradical)

theeducatedfieldnegro: “I am neither a fanatic nor a dreamer. I am a black man who loves peace, and justice, and loves his people.” —El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (الحاجّ مالك الشباز)  |   Malcolm X Happy Birthday!

theeducatedfieldnegro:

“I am neither a fanatic nor a dreamer. I am a black man who loves peace, and justice, and loves his people.”

—El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (الحاجّ مالك الشباز)  |   Malcolm X

Happy Birthday!

(via remorsecode)

theeducatedfieldnegro: “But the Black man by nature is a builder, he is scientific by nature, he’s mathematical by nature. Rhythm is mathematics, harmony is mathematics. It’s balance. And the Black man is balanced. Before you and I came over here, we were so well balanced we could toss something on our head and run with it. You can’t even run with your hat now—you can’t keep it on. Because you lost your balance. You’ve gotten away from yourself. But when you are in tune with yourself, your very nature has harmony, has rhythm, has mathematics. You can build. You don’t even need anybody to teach you how to build. You play music by ear. You dance by how you’re feeling. And you used to build the same way. You have it in you to do it. I know Black brickmasons from the South who have never been to school a day in their life. They throw more bricks together and you don’t know how they learned how to do it, but they know how to do it. When you see one of those other people doing it, they’ve been to school— somebody had to teach them. But nobody teaches you always what you know how to do. It just comes to you. That’s what makes you dangerous. When you come to yourself, a whole lot of other things will start coming to you, and the man knows it.” — Malcom X, “Ancient Black civilizations.”

theeducatedfieldnegro:

“But the Black man by nature is a builder, he is scientific by nature, he’s mathematical by nature. Rhythm is mathematics, harmony is mathematics. It’s balance. And the Black man is balanced. Before you and I came over here, we were so well balanced we could toss something on our head and run with it. You can’t even run with your hat now—you can’t keep it on. Because you lost your balance. You’ve gotten away from yourself. But when you are in tune with yourself, your very nature has harmony, has rhythm, has mathematics. You can build. You don’t even need anybody to teach you how to build. You play music by ear. You dance by how you’re feeling. And you used to build the same way. You have it in you to do it. I know Black brickmasons from the South who have never been to school a day in their life. They throw more bricks together and you don’t know how they learned how to do it, but they know how to do it. When you see one of those other people doing it, they’ve been to school— somebody had to teach them. But nobody teaches you always what you know how to do. It just comes to you. That’s what makes you dangerous. When you come to yourself, a whole lot of other things will start coming to you, and the man knows it.”

— Malcom X, “Ancient Black civilizations.”

(via remorsecode)