“Ommak Madonna” (your mother is Madonna)

Oh gosh, how much I hated that insult when I was young.

I don’t remember that I have ever said it to anyone, or anyone have ever said it to me, but I remember some other kids used to say it to each other and end up beating up each other like hell for such a humilating insult.

I didn’t know who is Madonna back then. I sure knew that it is a big insult. I thought that Madonna is a prostitute, that is how everyone percieved her back then here in Jordan. We werent exposed to the world like these days. In the late 80’s we didn’t have Satellite TV Stations, we didn’t have the internet, we didnt have our cell phones. We only had Jordan 2nd Channel and the Israeli’s channels for forign TV shows and music.

We still were able to get the news from over the world. Madonna was a big success at that time with her provocative songs and video clips concentrating on sex. A lot were able to get her albums, hear her music and even watch her on TV.

Our society was much more conservative than now, and while we still find people bitching current celebrity icons like Shakira, Haifa, Elissa and others, back then Modanna used to be consider as simply a prostitute. The worst thing a woman can be. To be a son of Madonna is worse than being burnt in hell.

With time, and our exposure to the world, our perception of things changed.

I know that it has been harder on some to let go of old childhood perceptions than others, but no one can deny the effect of the communication revolution on our way of thinking.

For me, and as I grew older, I had the chance to listen to Madonna’s songs. I loved her music. First I didn’t use to concentrate on the lyrics, the sex word was obvious in most of her songs, but I liked the songs anyway.

With time, Madonna has matured too. Her songs matured as well. She didn’t just provoke us sexually, but also provoked many politically and religiously.

In an interview with her she said that she believes that everyone here on earth for a role. When asked about her role. She said that she believes that her role is to provoke people.

Watching her talking on TV, one would see a mature well spoken woman who has worked on her knowledge and spirit in order to understand the world she is in. She isn’t a blonde sexual bimbo. She is just another searching soul who are trying to bring some joy to others on this way in her own way.

Recently all the press around the world covered the story of her adoption of the Malawian Kid. Millions around the world have envied this little poor kid who was so misfortune to born in a very poor country that suffer from much shortages of a decent living, to end up being picked by a star millionaire celebrity who are going to raise this kid as her own. Instead of living with poverty, he’ll be living in a mansion.

Would David Banda feel insulted when somone tell him “Ommak Madonna”?

I just wonder how my old peers feel about it.

Now that I have dreamt of this for a couple of times through the past couple of years, I do wonder what this dream suppose to mean.

I so often dream that I am back to either school or university. Usually it is me repeating the Tawjihi year at school in order to get a better grade where in the dream and after spending a coupple of months going to school again after several years out of it, I decide that I don’t want to study for the Tawiji exams again, and that my previous average is good enough, and what I am doing back in school is just for fun and for re-living old sweet days. In my dream, I feel the fear of having to study much for the tawjihi again, but at the same time I feel happy for going back to school with my old school mates who I havent really been close to and barely see them now, but I feel that I love them much in my dreams.

When it comes to the university dream, I dream that I am repeating my entire 4 year bachelor degree. I have no idea why I do that. Sometimes while dreaming, it occurs to me that I am doing this to catch upon things that I have missed in my first time, but then and after several months or even years of studing, I decide that what I am doing is absurd! I should have at least chosen another subject if I want to make another bachelor degree for another 4 years!

I just had the school dream tonight, and it buggles me! What does that suppose to mean?! Can anyone explain?

Read previous post Common Recurring Dreams

They keep on nagging and nagging on you to get married. You wouldnt be good if you reached a certain age without doing this must.

Once you get married, they start nagging on you to get a child. You wouldn’t be good if several year passed without you getting your first child.

If you get a girl then they won’t give you a time to breath, you have to get the son. You wouldn’t be good having only girls as offspring. A son is a must.

When you get the son, it won’t be good enough, you have to get him a brother. The poor guy can’t be good alone, he has to have a male sibling support.

Once you get the two boys, you’ll have to answer for their education. The best schools and universities is a requirement.

When your boys grow up, it would be a full cycle, everything above is repeated with you to have with your children!

There is no escape of people’s intruding in this country!

*sigh*

There is a severe problem in relationships in Amman. I am talking about pre-marital relationships for people between the ages 20-30.

At this point of time, women are getting in a delimma like never before. With the rapid changes happening in our society of going from a closed conservative society to a more and more open liberal one in less than 20 years time, it is becoming more harder for women to know what is accepted from their behaviour in this society.

Now with more and more women getting better education, going out to work, and achieving more in their careers, they are in more competitive situation like never before to get the right man in their side which is something essential in our society.

The delimma every woman in amman deals with is how to maintain an accepted moral social or religious values while at the same time deals with the flow of the advancement of our society.

One would say that moderization doesn’t have to contradict with our values, but that isn’t necessary true. For instance 20 years ago, women going out in the same car with another man even if he is just a friend wasn’t acceptable. Now, and eventhough you can still see some women worried of getting into other males friends car, you can see that it much more accepted than before.

I guess that it is even fair to say that current generation of university and school students find it odd for a girl not to have a boyfriend which was something forbidden a decade ago.

Unfortunatly the shadow of the old mentality is still dictating curent relationship. Now that people started accepting pre-marital relationships, women have still to decide the picture of such relationship. How much she is willing to give the man she loves might backfire on her. Giving too much might put her in a bad light, and holding back much would just put more strain to her relationship.

In the other hand, and while men’s mentality is changing, there is still a big portion of men who are ready to date many women for fun while end up marrying someone they barely know because they think that women who date are not good for marriage.

Bad men and women didn’t leave a room for the good ones to feel comfortable in their relationships. There are a good portion of open minded men who suffer from the holding back of the women they love, and their are many women who are suffering because they gave much in a previous relationship, there are also many women suffering in silence for their fear of the time passing without them being able to get married because they find it in appropriate to give more and so ending up invincible in a competitive society.

A complicated formula that each one has to play among his/her circle of people. I guess more trust in other people would give a small solution to this cumbersome problem.

In my post of yesterday, I called for some censorship from the government on what I percieved as a discriminating ad.

I got a couple of comments as a reply to my post. One of them was from Nas who thinks that it is odd that I am the one calling for censorship – which is true.

He said: “its strange that you’re essentially calling out for censorship; as if censorship was a remedy for anything.” (his whole reply can be found under the comment section of yesterday’s post)

His commet had me to stop and think. It is true that I am usually against censorship. I believe in freedom of speech and hate to see someone opressed of speaking up his mind.

But what about when it isn’t the freedom of speech that is violated? What about if the right of equality that is stated clear in the Jordanian constitution is violated? Can’t we call the government to act upon such violation?

I guess that I have been wrong calling for censorship because censorship means preventing things from happening. Maybe it is better to call the government to act when a violation of the law occurs.

Let who ever publish what ever he wants to publish. If it is against the law then the government can take it to the court. I am not so good in law matters, maybe any citizen can take another one to court if a law has been violated, and I believe that there has been a law violation in the Ad I talked about yesterday because the Jordanian constituion states clearly the rights of equality among the Jordanian citizens.

Yesterday I came across an ad in the newspaper for the ‘Al Tazaj’ fast food restaurant asking for employees to work for them in their branch in Amman.

What caught my attention is their explicit request of ‘veiled’ females which I find as a disturbing blunt discrimination.

I do realize that this happens on a wide scale in our society, as of some employers prefer to hirea specific sects people whether it is based on religion preferance, sex preferance or even origin preferance.

But what I don’t acceptable is to take it from an individual level and promote it publicly in newspapers.

Don’t we have rules in Jordan against discimination?
How could our government accept such ads to pass through the cencorship?

Would we end up in a more blunt discriminating ads? like, we are hireing christian females! or only those of Jordanian origins can apply! or yet maybe we are exclusive to a certain family members! or only for males, … etc

We get appailed of the news around the world of the discrimination taking place against veiled women in the west. We shout and scream about human rights, and their freedom to choose for themselves, yet we practice discrimination against un-veiled women in our country! Keeping silence about it only make us look as bad hypocrites.

Our censorship deparment should pay more attention to our citizens rights rather than of only censoring materials that don’t comply with the government strategies.

It is just funny how the conspiracy theory mentality works. It can be applied on anything, from a childish distrust of a person, to politics and nations affairs.

One can see it clear in every Arabic forum. Usually there is a news or something to disucss. People start supporting or attacking the issue on hand, then suddenly someone pops up with his theory about a conspiracy happening and claims to know the exact truth.

I was just reading Elaph site, about Elissa winning the Global Music Award for a second year in a row. I scrolled down to read the comments of people. Some were congratulating her, others saying that she doesn’t deserve the award. Some doesn’t understand how she got it. But what stopped me and really made me laugh is a person’s explanation that Elissa has a family member among the referee committe of the award!

ابو عدي
يا جماعة اللجنة فيها اميريكي من اصل لبناني اسمه انتوني ابراهام وهو من نفس المنطقة التي اتت منها اليسا وعلى معرفة بأهلها لا اكثر ولا اقل، بامكانكم زيارة موقع الاكاديمية الالكتروني للتأكد.

I guess that there is no escape from this mentality. From people boycotting Starbucks for their believe of its fund to Israel military, to people claiming that Star Academy is meant to draw our youth attention from important things, to people refuse to believe in a singer talent…

We can only sight, and smile…

“I don’t trust anyone because no one can be trusted in this life. I have been burnt before from my best friend”

“I have found out that my ex-boyfriend was cheating on me”

“Men canno’t be trusted”

“There is no real friends these days”

In order to protect ourselves, we lose much enjoyment in life. In order to protect ourselves we lose the sense of security and comfort we should have.

Having been burnt before doesn’t mean that we are going or not going to be burnt again. Humans are the same. Some might have different morals than others. Some might have different principles than other, but most have same basic needs, and a sense of balance between good and evil.

We are neither angels, nor devils. We are human beings who are mostly dictated by our needs. Circumstances do bend us towards good or evil. We might do right in a situation and wrong in another.

While each individual is different than the other, we still share a lot of commonolity. I might cause a harm to my friend in a certain occaision as much as he can cause me harm. Friends are meant to love and trust each other. Being burnt before, doesn’t mean to lose such quality of friendship.

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. A life with your guards always up is not comforting. Opening your heart to people around you do bring much happiness to yourself first then others.

When you give trust, you get trust. When you give love you get love. When you give hatred you get hatred.

The original sin inheritance concept of Christianity does require some faith from Christian themselves in order to swallow what would seem to be an unfair inheritance dictated by their holy God. Other people outside Christianity do point out the unfairness in such a concept of being born as a little baby while holding the original sin of Adam and Eve.

My post here isn’t meant to either defend this concept from a Christianity point of view as I am not a religious person, or to bash the unfairness of such a concept from another point of view.

What I am seeking here is merely to state my observation of nature and how much inheritance affects our lives more than we realize.

It is just how nature works. Regradless of the truth about inheritance sins, we do inherit a pool of genes that recent studies proved the relation of such genes with various human behaviours. A person is more likely to have diabetes because his parents are suffering from it. Is this fair? Perhaps not, but this is how nature works.

A person born to a poor family would most likely suffer in his life from the shortage of money more than a person born to a rich family. In general this what happens. Sure some special cases occurs when some rich families lose their money, or a poor person winning lottery or working hard to achieve a better living. But it has been dictated since his birth a set of inherited social structure that he had to deal with. Is this fair? Perhaps not, but this what happens.

People grow up learning their values and moral structure mainly from their parents or the people who were responsible of teaching them in their childhood. Someone born in Jordan is more likely to get an Islamic teaching and grow up with Islamic values rathen than someone living in Italy where it is more likely for him to get Christian teachings and values. Is this fair? Perhaps not, but this is life.

Is the inheritance of sins less fair than the inheritance of genes, social structure, or a person’s set of morals? I personally don’t think so, because each in a way dictates a person’s life on earth, and his eternal life for those who believe in it.

I feel tired. Work is getting more hectic everyday. 10 working hours a day is a bit too much to me. Thank God it is thursday. I can’t wait to go home and relax for a long weekend.

I know that there are many people in the world who work much harder than me and hardly find a time to complain, and I am aware that there are some people who do really love what they are doing. I do love my work in a way as it was something that I pursued strongly. It was like a dream for me a couple of years ago.

It isn’t clear to me what went wrong. Maybe people lose their hobbies when they become their work. Maybe I am not doing exactly what I hoped for. Maybe I had a different picture of what I am going to do rather than what happens in reality, or is it that I may not feel that I am progressing as I would like to or getting the rewarding I feel need to.

I just feel enslaved to this routine of having to stay infront of my pc 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. 4 years doing the same thing sure can make anyone get bored.

But yet, there is no close hope for a change. I am dependent financially on my work. It is quit rewarding, and a bit promising in the near future which keeps me stuck… maybe till I get lucky, and win the lottery.

Or maybe when I start my own business. Hope this would work.

Blogging helps bring some air to my long days at work. A break out of everything where I discharge my thoughts and feelings when I need to.

Maybe other people do have more right to complain than myself, but if other suffers more than me, that doesn’t mean that I can’t whine as well. I am not really suffering, I am just whining cause I need more sleep.

I need my bed today, my home. My freedom.

Guess that I am stuck here for another 9 hours. I am sure most of the people who would read this are stuck in their work as well.

The good news. It is thursday 🙂