Society

I often feel like a cultural black hole. Engulfing and consuming large quantities of culture, music, movies, books, and yet never producing any of it myself. Does it just get wasted inside? Well, I talk about it :-)

The Internet is promoting a new kind of culture that is more inclusive. To me, YouTube is the most glaring example: everyday people producing audio/video material, mostly out of their own time and effort, that addresses any topic that concerns them. Sometimes using it for commercial self-promotion, and that's part of the point too.

Before me, on public TV, is unfolding live the fire of the Egyptian Parliament's building.

The Nile News channel is filming the building on fire. Here's what I learn:

10:30pm (Egypt time, GMT+3)

• the fire started at 5:45pm.
• it is now 10:30pm and the fire is still going strong inside the building.
• the explanation for the rapid spread is that the strong wind and the wooden structure did it.

Dear American,

We need your help. Us, your neighbours around the world, have always admired your industriousness, ingenuity, and spirit of enterprise. We absorb your music, your movies, your language, fashion, books, your science and technology, and enjoy all of them while thanking you for it in sympathy. In return, we like to offer you what we're proud of in our own culture. We dream of your beautiful country, so vast and varied, where dreams can be realized. Because we also have dreams we want to realize, very similar to yours. Indeed, many of us have settled in your country to realize their dreams and their true potential. So you see, we look up to you in many ways.

It just hit me that all the countries that congratulate themselves on upholding freedom of speech and even try to shove it down other people's throats have a blatant breach of that principle right under their very eyes: the secrecy practices of corporations. When an employee is hired or fired, he signs a non-disclosure agreement concerning the activities of the company he joined. If he breaks that agreement, he is liable to legal pursuit, from the same legal system which holds freedom of speech as a sacred principle.

I've read so many endless threads of political discussions on forums and blogs that I'm nauseated. Here's an open letter to netizens who take sides.

Revolutions are a Good Thing. Countries routinely celebrate their revolution day. Even when the spirit of the revolution has been completely twisted and turned into a pacifier for the masses, the authorities still keep up the form of celebration. Which means that to the collective (sub)conscious at least, revolutions are welcome. This is also confirmed by the marketing world, which heralds every new tweak on an existing product as a revolution that finally gives us that utopian frictionless comfort.

Humans seem to organize their thinking in terms of hierarchies, classes and levels. This particular structure is quite useful in tackling problems related to the physical world, where manifestations exhibit a natural order that is intelligible to us. Specifically, manifestations seem to exist as clusters of mostly similar patterns, with few features distinguishable across the classes. This is obviously a computer programmer talking.

Like man organized for example the order of life forms in the phylogenetic tree, it was natural for him to undertake an organization of society, the grouping of man. And thus men were organized (by man) according to their geographical location, state allegiance, ideology, bank account, favourite soccer team, and physical features.

I know, I'm guilty, I've been watching TV every night, looking for decent movies on MBC2 and One TV. ("Sucker!" I can hear you laugh). One thing I've noticed lately, before my mind goes dim, is that we're being fed American war movies every day!! What can it possibly mean?

There's a perverse relationship going on between Western media and the Arab world, and I wonder what it's causing to the Arab psyche. One of my firm beliefs is that mass media, predominantly TV, causes a feedback loop from a society onto itself directly, much like a lecture delivered to an audience, except that the media feed directly affects the whole of society, by imprinting ideas onto the individual bypassing his critical judgement. The result is society moving in the direction of the media, in a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way.

It appears to me that the Western mind has become afflicted with theophobia, or the fear of religion. This is apparent in the speech of the scientific community, which posits rationality (aka reason) on a high pedestal, and considers both emotionality and spirituality as inferior or even negative modes of knowing.

And this attitude trickles down to the Western social and personal level, where an individual who displays any spiritual tendency will be frowned upon by his peers - a supposedly tolerant and open-minded bunch, as opposed to the superstitious and fanatic Orientals. This happened to me today, when I innocently mentioned to a friend that I was attempting to cut down on my addictions during the month of Ramadan. The knee-jerk response I got was: "Oh, are you turning religious?" in a clearly derogatory tone.

We attended the SOS Music Festival yesteday at the Chinese Garden on the Cairo International Conference Center grounds. The name chosen for the all-day, 8-bands affair reflects the opinion, shared by many Egyptians, that low-quality pop music has monopolized Egyptian airwaves, leaving nothing to the real musicians. This festival was an attempt at saving the music.

And saving it did! All the factors that make attending open-air music festivals enjoyable were there. The location is a huge garden with a big grass field, probably donated by the Chinese government, that comfortably accepted the 2000-3000 attendees. Once inside, past what looked like decent security gates, we immediately felt transported to an alternate and sorely-missed Egypt. One where you can stroll around freely, lay on the grass, enjoy the nice weather and relax to the music. Without being subjected to scolding or lustful stares, authoritarian treatment, or flea-market swindles. The crowd, mostly university students, were there for the music and the good time. Since no alcohol was allowed, there were no fights or the typical weird vibes. I did not smell too much drugs either :-)