Hicham Maged's blog

31Dec/090

Laila in La-La Land

Today I am saying ‘bye-bye’ 2009; a year where good things and bad ones took place on various levels starting with the personal, passing by the national and ending with the global. Among the few good things is the “Kolena Laila” event that I told you about few weeks ago and this is my post at the end of the year and the end of the event too so whether you are a regular reader or a new one, welcome abroad to my blog!

Cherchez La Femme

I used to mention over here how I am not happy with the status of women in our area due to the image people have about women, so my simple question is what lead us to this situation? Let us scratch the surface to reach for answers, hopefully!

Laila in La-La Land Although I do not like generalising, I believe there is an attitude of extreme highlighting on the ‘female part’ of woman in the minds of people.

This attitude is translated -either consciously or unconsciously- into a behaviour that focus on the ‘body-related’ topics and thus you find it controlling various discourses regardless the orientation (left/middle/right), and the final status is that women had been categorised according to this into two labels: either baby dolls or root of all evil for men.

The reflection of this categorisation could be noticed in the efforts that are being spent on quarrelling about things like:

women should be killed for honour crimes;
what women should/should not wear;
young girls and the crime of of FGM;
... the list seems endless!

I cannot understand this in terms of any thing but having women as a property of men in their minds and hence their presence as human being was reduced just as a female where as their mind is ignored after such minimizing process by people regardless their orientation.

On the other hand, I do respect everybody's personal belief however in a country like Egypt where Islam is the religion of the majority, I am placing my critique about how sometimes -or many- people relate their actions to Islam and hence you find the anti/pro discussions regarding the status of women and this lead to another stereotyped image that existed due to their actions not what Islam call for. This point is clear for people who read well in Islam, not for those who believe in what others tell them regardless their orientation.

You know what? Allah (god) created us that we may know each other generally and in case of men and women specially. Consequently, I neither believe in generalising nor extremism to any side and this means -from my point of view- that the keystone to solve this problem is understanding our differences and deal with it in a better way than we currently witness since many decades!

In a nutshell, women are human beings not only females. If it seems hard for many people to understand this since many decades, what is harder -for me- that we are still discussing this in the 21^st century!

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Tags: allah, coexistence, critique, egypt, god, islam, man, prophet muhammad, stereotype, woman No Comments

13Dec/092

Beyond saving Earth

I shall assume that now in the 21^st century we have successfully implemented a framework to preserve the climate change on planet Earth by decreasing the emissions of gases that previously lead to greenhouse effect in the 20^th century.

This is a great step for humanity since now we can live in a better clean planet and hence advance in a way that differs from the previous one throughout the history, however my question: are we really living in a better clean planet as humans in this case? I am looking for answers in this post.

Humans on Earth in the 21st century On the physical level, the planet became cleaner than the past and thus health shall be better as I discussed in the previous post, however on the physiological level, I am wondering about another kind of emissions of gases which are the hate and anger between people because of the differences.

A careful look on our overall history as humans in the past 20 centuries tell us that despite the continuous development on the technical level, we have no parallel development in the same way on the human one in terms of accepting our differences, which I see as a serious threat that is equal to the physical climate change threat.

I have discussed before how tunnel vision caused people to be blind for seeing the common grounds they have which is simply that we may know each other and cooperate with each other. On the contrary, you find humans regardless their religions and ideologies are still far from way for achieving such coexistence.

I emphasize on the point that we are neither angles nor devils but humans, thus dreaming about an ideal state of smooth human interaction is not my point because no “Utopia” on Earth. Nevertheless, whatever your religion and/or ideology, we are at the end of the day sharing the same place either locally; people of the same country or globally; nations of different countries.

Verily, I do not like simplification of situations that it is all about “good people versus bad people” from the ‘ethical’ and ‘religious’ point of view; it is true but not the only reason because the higher the level of interaction, the more complexity of relations and more reasons are being evolved.

Consequently, for me, it is clear that all of us need to reach a state of mind where people understand their differences and know how to deal with it in a better way than the existing one where every body accepts the stereotypes from whoever against whoever generally and during the past 30 years particularly.

In a nutshell, I am simply wondering when we can reach this? Or may be it is only happening on the intellectual level but it is still too slow for reaching the common level of people everywhere and here I mean all of us, not the usual segregation of the 1^st versus the 3^rd world since I am not sure about the validity of this categorisation when it comes to dealing with stereotypes.

“O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware.” ~ [Holy Qur'an (49:13)]

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Tags: allah, coexistence, critique, god, green, humanity, islam, stereotype 2 Comments

7Dec/093

A Cry for Mankind on Earth

Today is the first day for the “United Nations Climate Change Conference” which takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark between (7^th - 18^th December, 2009) where the participants aims to reach another deal beyond the year 2012 after Kyoto Treaty. Participants are collation of the ‘Conference of Parties (COP 15)’ to the ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’ and the ‘5th Meeting of Parties (COP 15 / MOP 5)’ to the ‘Kyoto Protocol’

The Two Sides

Stand up for Earth in the 21st century At the threshold of the 21^st century this is needed to set up an alarm for where humanity is heading to exactly. Generally speaking, the development on Planet Earth since the industrial era that started in the 19^th century had provided human beings with many facilities that helped them in moving straightforward, however the other side of the coin tell us about the pollution.

This dark side affected both the health of people on the short run and might help in increasing the Global warming effect on the long run due to the emission ‘Carbon Dioxide’ gas (CO₂) and this happened because of two reasons as I see:

we have not preserved our natural resources and;
the industrial policies have not implemented a good strategy for decreasing side effects that rapidly increased in the 20th century.

Stand up for Earth

My message for this conference is simple: few months ago, I participated in the online event Earth Hour that aimed to send a message for this conferences where leaders are discussing the climate change problems and here I am looking forward that they stand up for their responsibilities to preserve our future.

On the other hand, it is notable that in the year 2008, Earth inhabitants passed 6.6 billion person according to the World-Bank statistics and this means serious efforts should be spent for reaching a better future for our Earth; not only by placing and implementing a framework for nations via such conference but also for reaching clean technologies that help in saving the future of Earth and this has nothing to do with conference as much as the strategy of industry.

Some people think that climate change is just exaggerating and here I recall an Arabic proverb that states: Prevention (or protection) is better than cure, and this means it is stupid to wait till a tragedy happen then we start moving to solve it and here I wonder about the meaning of science we have developed as humans if it was not implemented for the sake of better future!

People, may be a post cannot help but look for our past and present and tell me how much money had been spent on stupid things like nuclear weapons, and how other had been spent on hating people because other do not like them? For that matter, I am sharing my thoughts clearly that we need to spend more money on things that help people which means to stop thinking on the short-run and in a narrow-minded way because it is not only about us; rather our children and their children shall succeed us on this planet, so what exactly are we leaving for them?

“The earth is what we all have in common.” ~ [Wendell Barry]

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United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC]
Gateway to UN System's Work on Climate Change

COP 15 Copenhagen [2009 Conference]

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About

Welcome to the blog that renders the perspective of a Muslim - Arab - Egyptian guy living on planet Earth, who believes that Imagination is more important than knowledge, yet the possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder! In a nutshell: "I wonder therefore I am" .. »

Impressions

Ana Goncalves: Dear Hicham, It is wonderful to be back on your blog. You ...
Abseaz: Also just wanted to add that I've heard that the book Techie...
Abseaz: I agree with Mohaly, it's all talk, talk and talk. They didn...
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Insight

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
by Jane Austen