The good people of Israel November 29, 2006
Posted by Aella in Israel, Sweden.2 comments
Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron.
by ISM Hebron, November 18
“A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks.
Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers (HRWs) to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 Jewish extremists in small groups. They started chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day.
After about thirty seconds of waiting, a small group of very aggressive male Jewish extremists surrounded the international volunteers and began spitting at them, so much so that the internationals described it as “like rain.” Then men from the back of the crowd began jumping up and spitting, while others from the back and side of the crowd kicked the volunteers.
The soldiers, who were standing at the checkpoint just a few feet behind the HRWs, looked on as they were being attacked.
One settler then hit Tove on the left side of her face with an empty bottle, breaking it on her face and leaving her with a broken cheekbone. She immediately fell to the ground and the group of Jewish extremists who were watching began to clap, cheer, and chant. The soldiers, who had only watched until this point, then came forward and motioned at the settlers, in a manner which the internationals described as “ok… that’s enough guys.”
Read (more…)
Saudi girls and their secret love lives November 27, 2006
Posted by Aella in Saudi Arabia, Saudi culture.38 comments
Found the following article on the site Arab View . It is written by Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan who is a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh. The name of the article is “Meeting a Girl’s Emotional and Psychological Needs: Parental Responsibility:
“In the past few years, a new and unusual phenomenon has been spreading among girls in public schools, universities, colleges, and sometimes among teachers or between teachers and students. These women develop a feeling of admiration toward each other until they form a platonic relationship. These relationships often evolve into serious and dangerous associations not only emotionally but also physically.
Having this sort of relationships between Saudi girls coming to light lately doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist before. It only indicates that freedom of publicly showing interest among girls is permitted now. History reveals that such relationships among women were present in the Abbasid era but it remained highly secretive.
In our modern world, being exposed and learning from other cultures trying to understand their relationships, values and specifically this type of sexual relations made our girls open to getting attached to individuals from the same gender. There are many factors that cause and create this type of attraction toward the same sex; some of these factors are genetic, some are environmental related to how the girl was brought up socially and psychologically.
Some people believe that separating the two genders is the main cause for such relationships keeping in mind that sexual energy is an instinctive natural desire that each and every person has. And because there are no boys available to interact with these girls and make them experience these feelings, girls end up searching for other girls. However, I don’t totally agree with this theory. The Saudi woman still admits that man is her only way to release her sexual energy even if she had made some attempts with her girlfriend to try and explore it, but this is only considered “childish behavior.
I would like to clarify that sex is not an obsessive topic women talk about in a society like ours, but how is it that love and affection between girls is increasing to an unacceptable degree just like what’s happening now? To me it seems that the nature of the woman — any woman no matter what her status — and her need to feel love boosts her self-confidence, her femininity, and her sexual abilities. These feelings are born easily and very quickly as soon as a student praises her peer’s good looks, personality or character in an unusual way. Then the same student would follow up with a sensational letter that declares her feelings of friendship and sexual desire toward the other girl. What happens is that when the other girl receives the letter and starts reading the compliments and likes it, she starts feeling special and that she’s worthy of love and care. Not to lose these beautiful positive feelings, she agrees to interact using the same language. A strong relationship is then born between the two where the first girl dominates the other. It’s all because she is in need of someone to fulfill her psychological and emotional needs either because she’s lonely, disturbed, or has no confidence in herself. So she seeks someone to be so close to her and listens to her problems. And the relationship is welcomed by the other girl who becomes ecstatic on hearing, on a regular basis, how beautiful and sexy she is! (more…)
Swastika rider November 26, 2006
Posted by Aella in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden.9 comments
Managed to take a pic inside Rashid Mall on Friday just before opening. I know that you are allowed to photograph things here here in the kingdom as long as you don’t take pics of people that don’t want to be included but I still feel a little uneasy about it. People are little uptight about cameras from what I have heard. I will still continue taking pictures though.
Inside Rashid Mall
And duh, outside Rashid Mall.
I am really wondering who is the owner of this bike. Is it a hindu, buddhist or what (since the swaztika is a sacred symbol in these religions)? Or is it someone who is just plainly in love with the ideas of the Nazis? I know this symbol is common in some Asian countries due to their religions but in Europe where I am from, it is mainly associated with Hitler and his men. I am pretty sure you would get arrested for having this on your bike in Sweden (seeeee we too are open minded and tolerant!)…. unless someone actually breaks your bike first.
The never ending Lebanese story November 21, 2006
Posted by Aella in Beirut, Lebanon.4 comments
Lebanon’s minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel was assassinated today as he sat in his car in New Jdeideh. According to reports his vehicle was rammed by the 
assassins’ car before Gemayel was shot at point-blank range as the assassin got out of the car and walked up to him. Pierre Gemayel was a member of the infamous Christian Phalange Party of Lebanon which his grandad (also named Pierre Gemayel) founded in 1936. The Phalangist are believed by many to be among the responsible for the 1982 massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila
This assasination has heightened the already tense political situation in Lebanon where recently five shia ministers resigned after Lebanese political leaders broke off round table talks without having come to a conclusion to the crisis facing the country.
Saad Hariri, leader of the Future Movement and son of the late Rafik Hariri broke of a news conference after hearing that Gemayel had been shot and hailed him as a brother and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Need I go on?
Another tragic assassination in Lebanon and surely not the last one. During the war on Lebanon by the Israelis I was devastated but apparantly the war was nothing but an interruption and a disturbance for the Lebanese in their bickering amongst each other.
When will they stop fighting and killing each other in this small but amazing country? Probably never. It is like someone combined the crooks and plots of the movies Street Fighter and all the Batman movies and made a country with a screwed up political system.
So many Lebanese dissapoint me greatly. At the Mövenpick lunch the other day I sat next to a Christian ex-colleague of my husband. We can call this man eeh, Hitler. As we started talking about the war of 2006 he exclaimed that it was Terrible! Yes, I said, With all the bombings and killing, really terrible. Ah, he goes, The bombings weren’t so bad? How do you mean, I said, What about all those villages in the South? What villages? Only shias live there, he said with a laugh. We all laughed in my neighbourhood when we heard of it….said lil Hitler. Who is up for dessert?
Needless to say, my jaw dropped when he expressed his views on the war. Unfortunatly his way of thinking is not uncommon in Lebanon.
When I lived there I often met people that thought that other groups deserved to be kicked out of Lebanon or even be killed. In my love for the people of Lebanon and due to my naive outlook on them I always argued with whoever spewed hate on the other side, whatever side it might be. I am really dissapointed in them and I think the chances of the Lebanese living peacefully toghether is as great as the Israel-Palestine conflict to be solved.
Blogspot blocked?? November 15, 2006
Posted by Aella in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia.8 comments
I have been trying to access some blogs on Blogspot lately without any success and it really pissed me off. There are plenty of good blogs there and I just don’t want to be without them. So Blogspot is probably blocked and I really don’t know why. Aaaanyway, as we say in Sweden, shame on the person that gives up, today I found this lil treasure http://www.inblogs.net/ which helped me access the blogs I wanted to check out ( one of them www.lifeinbahrain.blogspot.com). Really interesting and hilarious blog. This sentence just cracked me up “playing really loud Bedouin music, that sounds like a soundtrack of a really fucked up and twisted horror movie” (posted on the 30th of nov 2005).
Please pass on the inblogs.net link to anyone having problems accessing Blogspot.
Domestic workers in Saudi November 13, 2006
Posted by Aella in Saudi Arabia.2 comments
Have just started a quest in order to find out how to get a full time maid here in Saudi Arabia. Doesn’t seem to be the easiest thing around. As I searched the net for any info I bumped into some seriously depressing reading.
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/saudi0704/7.htm
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/webspecials02/saudiarabia/day3/story1.shtml
And of course there is a lot more to read. I mean how sick can people get? Forbidding maids to leave the house, sexually abuse them, beat them, giving them crap food and letting them work 24-7. Did they think they bought a person or hired one? And who do they think they are themselves treating people like this? Really sickens me.
