A Woman to Admire

Recently I have been learning a lot about Benazir Bhutto. Let me tell you why I admire her.

• She was the first WOMAN Prime Minister of an Islamic country (she served as Prime Minister of Pakistan twice from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996).
• She is the mother of three children (two of whom she gave birth to during her first term as Prime Minister).
• Her father who was also Prime Minister in the early 1970s, was hung after a military coup. She was then incarcerated for a total of seven years because of her family name. The worst part of her incarceration was when she was put in solitary confinement (for almost five years) in a desert cell during the summer of 1981. (I saw pictures of her desert prison that horrified me.) She described the conditions in her wall-less cage as follows:
  
  "The summer heat turned my cell into an oven. My skin split and peeled, coming off my hands in sheets. Boils erupted on my face. My hair, which had always been thick, began to come out by the handful. Insects crept into the cell like invading armies. Grasshoppers, mosquitoes, stinging flies, bees and bugs came up through the cracks in the floor and through the open bars from the courtyard. Big black ants, cockroaches, seething clumps of little red ants and spiders. I tried pulling the sheet over my head at night to hide from their bites, pushing it back when it got too hot to breathe."
  
  She remained hospitalized for months as a result.
  
  
• After her imprisonment, she was more determined than ever to fight for democracy in Pakistan.
• At the height of her popularity - shortly after her first election - she was one of the most high-profile women leaders in the world.
  
• After all she went through, she never completely loses faith in, or gives up on the hope and the dream that Pakistan can turn itself around and become the kind of open democracy she envisioned it to be.
• On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally. She had given a spirited address to party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her and subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately 20 people.
  
• I hope that in the future, a definitive and balanced account of her leadership and life as well as her family's reign will be written.

A Syrian-Style Mother's Day

Bashar al-Assad, ruler of Syria is killing more and more of his own people everyday. In their hearts, I think the Syrian people knew that they would pay a heavy price for freedom. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons it took so long for protests to take off there, even though Syria is high on the list of the most repressive governments in the world. Emergency laws, in place for the past fifty years, allow the government to censor, arrest, torture, intimidate, and suspend most constitutional rights. If that isn't enough to intimidate and suppress the people there is always the lingering nightmare of 1982 in their minds. Hafez al-Assad, father of the current dictator, presided over a massacre in the city of Hama that left tens of thousands of people dead. Just how many nobody knows for certain. Word didn’t leak out to the international community for weeks, and by then the dead had been interred in mass graves, and a blanket of enforced secrecy had fallen over the incident. In Syria, even mentioning the events in Hama is strictly forbidden. However, a full description of the massacre (not for the faint of heart) has been compiled by the Syrian Human Rights Committee.

It is against this backdrop that the Syrians are exhibiting extraordinary courage as they defy a government that until now has so effectively controlled them by fear and force. I have a special feeling for Syria, and have been waiting anxiously for this moment. In January of 2001, when I arrived in Damascus for a second time, Bashar al-Assad was the new president. (I was also there in the summer of 1999 when Bashar’s father Hafez al Assad was still in power) The new president filled me with optimism, mainly because Bashar was not originally chosen to succeed his father. He also had a very decidedly unpolitical original career choice. The newly “elected” Bashar seemed less formidable than his father. It was possible, just faintly possible for the optimistic, that under his leadership Syria might peacefully transition to a more free and open society.

But all the trappings of dictatorship remained, and I was to become intimately acquainted with many of them during my stay in Damascus. First, there were the pictures of the president. Everywhere. And often they weren’t just pictures, they were adoring collages of the president and his father and his deceased elder brother, all framed by such a profusion of sentimental flowers that it would be amusing if you could forget the circumstances. The regime also actively promotes hatred of Israel as a tool for domestic political support and stability, so Bashar could be found dressed in fatigues with a machine gun, or with his arm extended, Hitler-style, over cheering crowds and rows of troops. I still have posters and pamphlets and my Bashar keychain, I guess I could burn them in solidarity. (In the future, I will have to write about the Hizbollah rally I went to.)

While in Syria, we were told to assume that our living quarters were bugged by the mukhabarat, the infamous secret police of Syria. So my fellow American students and I would often joke about the mukhabarat in our ceiling fan. Maybe they were there, and maybe they weren’t. But on one memorable day, a friend of mine broke down and spent an hour or so ranting to the ceiling fan mukhabarat about just what she thought of them. Living under a repressive dictatorship, even if it’s not your own, really does strange things to a person.

However, the incident I really need to get off my chest happened on Mother’s Day of 2001. As part of our cultural outreach activities, members of my study group were spread throughout the city of Damascus participating in ongoing service projects. The project I picked was teaching songs to the children at a special ed school in preparation for a Mother’s Day performance. I went every week with a couple of other American students to teach twenty or so sweet, adorable down syndrome children how to sing a few songs, both in English and in Arabic. The songs we chose were simple ones expressing love for their mothers. It took a long time to teach them, but it didn’t matter. I loved visiting those children. They were so kind to each other and loving to us. And they didn’t care at all that my Arabic was rudimentary. They would always greet us with smiles and hugs, and we usually stayed after music time to play with them at recess.

However, an odd thing began to happen after a few weeks. The teachers at the school apologetically informed us that the songs we were to teach the children had changed. In fact, they changed several times over the next few weeks. We had one cold and formal interview with a school administrator, in which we feebly suggested that our songs had been more appropriate for Mother’s Day than the increasingly politically-toned songs they were insisting that we replace them with. In the end though, rather than our sentimental mother-I-love-you songs, we had to settle for teaching the children songs about the glory of the Syrian Republic, and standing for Bashar al-Assad “with heart, with blood,” etc. (I still remember that ridiculous chant we would recite.)

I still held out the hope, though, that even though the songs were decidedly not to do with mothers at all, at least the program would be a nice tribute to the mothers, who would think their children adorable no matter what songs they sang. When we arrived at the room where the Mother’s Day performance was to be held, I was impressed with the grandeur of the setting. A stage festooned with flowers was crowned by a gigantic projection screen. The audience was full of parents and grandparents, and children from a dozen or more schools were dressed in various costumes (including a group of very blonde Russian girls dressed up with their hair braided in ribbons to do a traditional Russian dance, reminding me that Russia’s cold war ties with Syria remain warm).

But as we settled back to enjoy the program, my warm and fuzzy Mother’s Day thoughts about my own mother in faraway America were intruded upon by my dawning realization that Mother’s Day in autocratic Syria is more about glorifying Bashar and the Regime than it is about honoring mothers. Most of the performances had overtly political themes. To me, there was just something obscene about twisting a celebration of children honoring the maternal bond into a blatant glorification of political repression and violence. The worst was a large group of identically-dressed children who couldn’t have been older than five or six, singing their hearts out with lyrics about being ready to fight to the death and bleed for the fatherland. As they sang, the screen behind them played video of graphic scenes of fire and bloodshed from various wars with Israel. By the time I got up on stage with my sweet, innocent charges to lead them through a political rallying cry for President Bashar (yes, complete with the Hitler-salute), I was feeling sick with anger and betrayal.
How was it that the tender family moment I had planned to share with these children had been perverted by a self-serving government into just another showy display of the “grassroots support” enjoyed by the regime? I felt used. I felt violated. I felt guilty for having been caught up in something I would never have done had I understood what it was from the beginning. My efforts to bridge cultural gaps and forge friendships between my country and Syria had, in this case, backfired on me in a way I never expected. It had all happened so gradually, and with such smooth and understated but iron-clad control that before I knew it, I was on Syrian national television (yes, the whole thing was filmed and broadcast) leading the most innocent of the innocent in saluting President Bashar like a dyed-in-the-wool Ba’ath partisan.
And now, as I watch Syrians being gunned down by that very same government as they demonstrate for basic human rights, I cringe again. Of course I wouldn’t obey Bashar if he told me to go out and shoot protesters. But I joined the faceless masses, however unwillingly, in singing his praises. All I can say is, I’m sorry. With all my heart, I support the Syrians in their cause, and wish them success and Godspeed as they begin their perilous journey toward freedom.

(Thank you to Thuriyah, one of my Arabic study buddies for reminding me of these events.)

Easter

Alexandra brought this old, ratty pillow to the middle of the kitchen floor one night while I was cooking dinner and laid down. She was so proud she had made a nice, cozy bed in the middle of the kitchen.

Here is her new cheesy grin she gives to the camera. She even says "cheese."

Here are the girls watching the Ten Commandments on Easter. Abby and Sammy really got into it and have watched parts of it several times since.

The girls went on a Easter egg hunt and met the Easter Bunny. Alex became obsessed with him and followed the poor bunny everywhere stealing a touch of his fur whenever she could. She even kept her eye on him when he was off in the distance. Perhaps she was contemplating whether he was real or not.

Hooray for Easter!

Abby's artwork always surprises me. I am quite amazed at how good it is. Is it just me or do you think it is good too? Who couldn't love those birds! It has gone on our art wall of fame (our walls on the way down to our basement are completely covered with their art. I will have to post a picture of it sometime).

I love, love, love getting things professionally framed. I have been wanting to frame this since the summer of 1999. I got this from Maloula, Syria. It is the Lord's Prayer in English, Aramaic and Arabic. Maloula is one of the last places on earth where Aramaic is spoken.
My Easter table - I love the coordinating chairs and table cloth
The girls' morning ritual is to stand at the glass door and wait for Abby's ride to pick her up and take her to school. After Abby leaves, Alexandra and Sammy won't leave the door until the car has completely disappeared. If she only knew how much they idolize her.
Abby and Sammy were being the best friends one day. I love that they always have each other to play with AND little Alex of course....

Could I Be A Bigger Idiot?

Embarassing Moment #1:
The other day I invited my neighbor across the street over for lunch. She is Pakistani and a practicing Muslim. She also grew up in London and since we lived there for five years and I have studied the Middle East, we have a lot in common. She has been so kind and taken me to some Indian/Pakistani grocery stores here to further my curry cooking. I have been so grateful and enjoying all the great curry and Indian food so much that I wanted to thank her by inviting her to lunch. I was so excited to make quiche and thought she would really enjoy it. I had been craving it recently after all so I set about mkaing my quiche the morning of our lunch. Charles does not like quiche so I make it frequently when I have someone over. However, in my excitement to make it I didn't think twice about adding a bunch of ham to it. When she came over, she asked if it was ham in it. I immediately realized what I had done. You would think that after living in the Middle East numerous times and studying it for so long I would remember something like that but I didn't. How embarrassing!

(In case you don't know, Muslims do not consume pork or any part of swine. The animal is considered filthy. The Quran says: Quran 16:115 "He has only forbidden you dead meat, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and any (food) over which the name of other than Allah has been invoked." All flesh of swine is filth and it is forbidden to eat their meat, fat or skin. It is also forbidden to sell the flesh from swine because, like unslaughtered dead animals and wine, it is filth.)

Embarrassing Moment #2:
Abby has a friend in her class that she has had only one playdate with. After that playdate her friend invited Abby to her birthday party. Abby was so excited of course. I wrote it on the calendar and then didn't look at the invite again. The day of the party arrived and I took Abby to the girl's house and dropped her off. I did not get out of the car, just let Abby go up to the door herself. When I saw that she went in, I drove home.

After two and a half hours, I went to pick her up. I walked up to the door and the woman answered and said Abby was just about to have dinner with the family. I noticed there was no other children at the house and no signs of a party. I thought it was strange but then figured they were just having a family party and only invited Abby. I left Abby there for another hour and went to pick her up again. When I picked her up the second time I asked when the girl's actual birthday was. The mother replied that her birthday was on Saturday which was the same day as her party! I couldn't believe I wrote the party date on my calendar wrong and had dropped Abby off at someone's house (who I barely know) completely un-announced AND un-invited! The mother said she didn't remember scheduling a playdate and had looked through all her phone messages and emails to see if she simply had just forgotten. I was sooooo embarrassed!

Adventures Far and Near

This past Thursday all of Abby's dreams came true - she and Sammy met

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN and his family! They not only met them but they did it at the WHITE HOUSE! How could anyone's spring break get any better than this? .......Ok so it wasn't the White House in Washington D.C. and the President was wax and not very chatty but what's not to love? Who knew Springfield, Illinois could be so fun AND educational? While Charles and friends took the girls on their day trip to the exotic locale of Springfield, I....

.... stayed home and had adventures with Alexandra in the basement as we drove and discovered every square inch. Yee haw!

As you can see, our lives these days are pretty dang adventurous and cool. I know you are all jealous but that's life. Everybody can't have the luck and adventures that we do!

Maybe next time we go to Springfield, we'll send you a postcard...

if you're lucky!

Prissy Girls and Big, Ugly Dictators

Now that I have established that this blog is NOT ONLY about cute, frilly little girls and their silly pranks and everyday adventures but that it is also about ugly, freakish dictators I feel like I have come out of hiding or something. You all now know the real me (that is, if anyone REALLY actually reads this blog). I must say, I can't guarentee that you have seen the last of the dictators either. Now that I have actually blogged about them, the flood gates may have opened and there may be more on the topic in the future. I realize they were not popular blog posts since NO ONE commented on them accept dear cousin Susi. But I don't care. I will blog about them anyway. I am thinking I should change my little blog summary at the top to: Prissy Little Girls and Evil Dictators - after all, they do go hand-in-hand don't they?

Anyway, back to the darling little girls and their adventures. The picture above shows little Alexandra on her horse. She spends a lot of time on him these days and is always standing to the side of him grunting to get someone's attention to lift her up there. (She was a little annoyed at the time I took the picture to be so crowded by her sisters, after all she was just trying to get in some good riding time and they were really cramping her style.)

The other news in case you didn't know is Alexandra started walking in February and has completely accomplished that task now. She was 17 months - a little late due to the body cast she was in from six to nine months - but now I wonder if that cast thing was all a dream or if she really was immobile for that long. I sure can't remember it now. She gets into everything including any door and the refridgerator. It's such a joy... now where did I put that cast and does anyone know if they are reusable?

The picture above was on President's Day. Abby came up with the grand idea of how to celebrate the holiday at our house. She proposed we make a cake for George Washington's birthday, watch some movies about George Washington and read some books about him too. So that is just what we did. I made this lovely chocolate cake (from scratch) with a mixture of buttercream frosting (which we ran out of) and cream cheese and whip cream on top. Abby was very particular and let me know that the cake had to say, "Happy Birthday George Washington." She suggested we put 278 candles on it since that is how old he would be but we decided that might be a slight fire hazard, so we put three and bellowed out a lovely rendition of the song.

Charles then got out some documentaries that we watched snippets of about George but Abby and Sammy's attention span didn't last too long on that one. It was great to actually celebrate the day. However, Abby did note that we had missed Abe Lincoln's just a few days prior and asked if we could make him a cake as well.... uh, not likely!

Other Events in February worth mentioning:

Sammy was sick and vomiting for a day or two in February. She was sleeping on the floor on a mattress in our room. She had a bowl that she was vomiting in. In the morning, I had gone in her room with her to change clothes and hadn’t emptied the "barf bucket" yet. Alex seized the opportunity and went into our room and immediately for the bucket. There were several tissues in the bowl that Sammy had used to wipe her mouth after vomiting. I found them thrown about the mattress and the "barf bucket" tipped over on the bed. I screamed in horror when I realized Alex had rummaged through it. Amazingly, she never got sick!

During the time that Sammy was sick and vomiting, Abby felt bad for her and cut out a paper heart and wrote on it, “Happy V-day. I love you. Love Abby.” Sammy stared at it all day and could not have been happier to receive it. A few weeks later (March 12) after a particularly long day of fighting with Abby constantly, Sammy dug the paper heart out of the special place she had put it, read it and looked at it again. As she looked at it she asked me, “Momma, do you think Abby loves me?” It could have killed me.

Who's Your Favorite Dictator?

In honor of President Hosni Mubarak's fall from office last week, I thought I would do an "Ode to Dictators" post. The following is my list of "favorite dictators."

Disclaimer: By saying these dictators are my "favorite," I am in no way saying that I agree with their policies and/or lack of respect for human rights. The information and data published on the website is strictly for fun.
Any opinions or viewpoints that are published herein are directly from the contributing author and does not represent the philosophy or viewpoints of the author of this blog.
The information contained on this website has not been reviewed by professionals with the knowledge required to validate that the data is accurate, complete, or reliable.

First up, the leader of Lybia. I saw this picture of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi online the other day and was so amused by it that I had to save it to our desktop. Charles saw the picture and re-saved it as "Joycee's Dreamboat." Nice! Later he re-named it again, "Hubba Dude." I love his curled lip, serious look in his eyes and messy hair together with his crisp, military uniform. It rocks. I have to admit, I have had a fascination with this man for a few years now. He is such an interesting character with his flamboyant dress and gun-toting female bodyguards.

You can see some of his female bodyguards behind him in this picture.

Qadaffi laid out his political philosophy in the 1970s in his "Green Book" (which I own). It's an alternative to both socialism and capitalism, combined with aspects of Islam. It is uniquely his. In fact, I acquired the Green Book almost at the cost of my future career (at the time). I was in Syria at the time and really wanted to get a copy of the Green Book. The U.S. does not have a Libyan embassy but Syria does. So I thought it was the perfect opportunity to acquire this little gem. I went to the Libyan embassy and asked for a copy. They asked to see my passport which I handed over without hesitation. They made several photocopies of it and handed it back with my Green Book. A short time later, I realized that my future dreams to work for the CIA/NSA or U.S. Government were most likely destroyed because I now had my name on record with the Libyans....

Check him out in this picture. Wow! Is that the same guy?

Here is a classic!


Anyway, Muammar is NOT my ONLY favorite dictator. There are others, such as:

Yasser Arafat! I used to call him simply, "Yasser." I still own a white t-shirt with his smiling face on it (that looks very similar to the picture above) and the Palestinian flag waving in the background. I have not ever washed it either. I don't dare. I fear the iron-on applique will come off. When I have worn it, I only keep it on for short periods and am careful not to sweat in it. I wore it in college when I was competing in something called "Model Arab League" and was representing the Palestinians.

I remember when I was in Bethlehem and we had just walked into the Church of the Nativity. I had just crouched down to touch the spot where some believe Jesus was born, when I heard that Yasser Arafat was going to appear outside. I jumped up without a moment's hesitation and ran out to see him. There was a small crowd. I was with my Aunt Gertrud and cousin Susi. I gave my camera to a tall man (if I remember correctly) so I could get pictures of him. My adrenaline was pumping and I could not have been MORE excited! I saw Yasser!

Hafez al Assad is also a favorite of mine. I must say though, I am a bigger fan of his son but I will get to him in a second. I like Hafez al Assad because he was the president of Syria when I first visited the country in 1999 (he died in 2000). He was president for 30 years. A solid dictator. I remember driving through a very uninhabited part of Syria where there was literally desert as far as you could see and spotting in the distance a statue of Hafez waving. I found it so peculiar that there would be a statue so far out and in the middle of no where that I was intrigued.

I still own a heart-shaped key chain with a picture of Hafez al Assad on one side and his son, Bashar al Assad on the other side.

I got the privilege to return to Syria after Hafez had died and was able to go to his hometown of Qardaha and see where he was buried along with his son Basil who was supposed to be his successor until he died in a car accident.

This is the son of Hafez al Assad, his name is Bashar al Assad. (Isn't his wife hot? More about her in a minute.) He came to power in 2000 after his father died. I became obsessed with Bashar when I found out his father had died. I read article after article and wondered what kind of leader Bashar would be. I had high hopes that he would bring great change to Syria because he was not groomed to be the president after his father. Originally it was his older brother Basil (like I mentioned previously). Bashar initially was going to be an eye doctor and had been educated in London. I believe that is when he met his wife, Asma who is a British-born Sunni Muslim. She had worked for JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. She is well-known for her high fashion sense.

When I returned to Syria in 2001. Our group got to know a prominent Syrian businessman who kept telling us he would try and get us an opportunity to meet the president. I was so overcome with excitement I could hardly contain myself. I thought about how great it would be all the time. I wanted to meet Bashar more than anything at that time. I even had a dream once that I got to play soccer with him. We never did get to meet him but we did write letters to him in our best Arabic and told him about our experiences in Syria.

Ok one more picture of just Bashar.

Next up, a man NOT from the Middle East, Mao Zedong of China or Chairman Mao. He ruled China for 33 years! I first became interested in Mao when I took a class at the University of Utah on Chinese Politics. I ended up doing my senior thesis on how the United States sold weapons to Israel who then sold them to China. Those weapons were then used against the United States when they were defending Taiwan. A viscious little cycle. I must admit, I know I learned a lot about him in that class and how he mobilized the peasants and something about the Red Army and the long march but I don't remember much. Whatever I learned, it has stuck in my mind that I thought he was pretty fascinating. I have never been to China. He died the year I was born so there was no possibility of meeting him either. But for some reason, I have held on to him as one of my favorites.

Last but not least, Fidel Castro of Cuba. (Why is he so sad in this picture? I know not.) He was in office an astounding 45 years! I became interested in Castro when I read a book about Che Guevara while I was in college. Again, I don't remember a ton but the Cuban Missile Crisis was pretty cool. The fact that this tiny country has been a constant threat and annoyance to the United States makes it a favorite. I always wanted to go to Cuba simply because you weren't allowed. I own Castro's biography but as Charles will tell you, I have not read it. I plan to one day, hopefully soon.

Anyway, that completes my list.

Now the question is:

Who is YOUR favorite dictator??