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March 05, 2010
16:59
Home page photos
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Home page photos
10:59
Noura Matin - Fashion News
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Hey! Looked who the cat dragged in!

Here I thought that Kirsten Dunst has been spending the last few years partying and walking around Soho with no bra, but it turns out she actually did stuff!

InStyle has the scoop on her newest fashion shoot for V Magazine. Girlfriend is looking very old Hollywood in some slinky outfits and hot pink lipstick. Though frankly, I find it hard to see past those crazy huge fake eyelashes! I get the feeling Kirsten is having the same problem.

Whatever, as my mother always used to say, beauty is pain. Or, in this case, blindness.
August 09, 2006

16:25

Lebanon Oil Spill - Israel Create A Biodiversity Disaster, Cleanup Blocked

WHY? Is the oil spill in Lebanon not receiving prominence in the media? Israel have destroyed the majority of Lebanon's infrastructure, Lebanon's economy, murdered Lebanon's civillians and now Israel has created an environmental disaster that threatens the sea, marine life and coastline of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Cyprus. How can the US, UK, UN and every citizen of the world stand silent in the face of such blatant terrorism?

Lebanon Oil Spill a Biodiversity Disaster, Cleanup Blocked

ATHENS, Greece, August 8, 2006 (ENS) - Two United Nations experts arrived today in Syria to evaluate the consequences of the oil spill that has contaminated more than 140 kilometers of the Lebanese coastline and has spread north into Syrian waters. Heavy fighting continues to rage in southern Lebanon, blocking access to the polluted area.

The Israeli bombing of the Lebanese power plant at Jiyyeh 30 kilometers south of Beirut on July 13 and 15 is believed to have spilled at least 10,000 and up to 35,000 metric tons of oil into the Eastern Mediterranean. Some fear the oil could spread to Turkey and Cyprus.

Paul Mifsud, coordinator of the Athens based UN Environment Programme' Mediterranean Action Plan, or UNEP-MAP, said Syrian Minister of Local Administration and Environment Helal Al-Atrash confirmed that the oil has spread along the Syrian coastline from the Al-Aridah area to Al-Nauras.

In a letter to UNEP-MAP dated August 4, Al-Atrash asked UNEP-MAP “to send professional companies to control the spilled oil on the shoreline and territorial waters."

This satellite image taken August 3 shows that the slick has spread north and west into the Mediterranean Sea. (Photo courtesy Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information) (see end of blog) UNEP said today that the quantity of oil spilled in Lebanon is already comparable to the disaster caused in 1999 off the coast of France when the Erika tanker spilled 13,000 metric tonnes of oil into the Atlantic Ocean. The agency warned that if all the oil contained in the bombed power plant at Jiyyeh leaked into the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese oil spill could rival the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.

Marine species such as the commercially important bluefin tuna are believed to have been affected by the oil spill.

“This oil slick definitely poses a threat to biodiversity," said marine biologist Dr. Ezio Amato of Italy, who arrived in Damascus today to assess the spill.

Dr. Amato is a specialist in the impact of human activities on marine benthic ecosystems, fate and effects of pollutants in these ecosystems.

He is from ICRAM, the Istituto Centrale per la Ricerca scientificae tecnologica Applicata al Mare, an Italian research institute that is part of a group of organizations cooperating to address the spill.

“Because tuna’s eggs and larvae float on the water surface, they can be directly affected by this oil slick, with potential serious consequences for the tuna population in the Mediterranean," Amato said.

The largest of the tunas, bluefin tuna migrate from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Mediterranean and form spawning aggregations. The species is already at risk due to overfishing, warned WWF in a July report, saying current levels of fishing are 2.5 times higher than the bluefin tuna populations can sustain.

“Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks risk imminent commercial collapse,” said Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi, CEO of Advanced Tuna Ranching Technologies and author of the WWF report.

“In the race to catch shrinking tuna stocks, industrial fleets are switching from traditional fishing grounds to the last breeding refuges in the eastern Mediterranean,” he said.

At this time of year, critically endangered Mediterranean green turtles nest on a beach in Lebanon, but the coast is coated with oil from the spill.

"I saw many fish and crabs dead by the Ramlet al-Baida beach," environmental activist Iffat Edriss told the "Daily Star," describing the situation as a disaster for the marine ecosystem. Ramlet al-Baida is the only public beach in Beirut.

At this stage the information however remains sketchy and no cleanup action has been possible. Dr. Amato will provide visual documentation and validate through a field assessment what is shown in the satellite imagery and models.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, “While I fully understand the complexity and political implications, many are appalled that, more than three weeks into this crisis, there has been no on the ground assessment to support the Lebanese government, no moves possible towards a cleanup, and indeed few practical measures to contain the further spread of the slick."

“We are dealing with a very serious incident and any practical steps are still constrained by the continuation of hostilities. We are glad that two of our experts will now be able to provide advice from Damascus, even though much more is needed," said Steiner.

In Damascus, Dr. Amato will join another specialist from the Joint UNEP-OCHA Environment Unit, who is traveling to the region from Geneva to coordinate the emerging efforts on the ground.

“The cleanup operations will require intense cooperation between international actors and the governments of the Mediterranean region," Steiner said.

The International Maritime Organization, IMO, is coordinating the international effort to help Lebanon to respond to the oil spill, following a request for assistance from the Lebanese Environment Minister on July 27.

The IMO is collaborating with the Joint Environment Unit of UNEP and the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and with the European Commission.

The Commission is evaluating and monitoring the scope of the marine pollution on the basis of contacts of experts from the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre, MIC, with the Lebanese Ministry of Environment. Detailed satellite images provided by MIC partners are being analyzed.

“With the help of the MIC, member states will be able to provide co-ordinated assistance, including experts and specialised materials,” said European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who is in charge of the Monitoring and Information Centre.

MIC has dispatched a team of three Danish coastal and marine pollution experts to assist the Lebanese authorities in the assessment and the cleanup operations.

Norway has donated nine metric tons of equipment through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to remove the oil pollution. Other member states have also informed the MIC of possible assistance to Lebanon through private channels.

The Mediterranean Oil Industry Group, a regional network of industry experts in oil spill response, has also been contacted.

But assistance can only be delivered when hostilities cease.

As far as movement of any possible oil slick at sea is concerned, MAP is obtaining satellite images from several sources. However, says Mifsud, the initial results and the satellite images currently available should only be considered as a preliminary indication of the oil's spread.

15:00
George Galloway Sky News Interview About Middle East Crisis
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This is a must see video! All respect to George Galloway for speaking the truth in the face of criticism. Standing Ovation For Mr.Galloway! The truth will set you free!

In this video George Galloway speaks out in a controversial interview on Sky News 06/08/2006, about the on-going war in Lebanon specifically referring to Israel's continuous invasion of land in Palestine and Lebanon over the last twenty-four years. He also speaks out against the USA and the growing support of Hezbollah from Muslims across the world.
Watch the video here NO JUSTICE - NO PEACE!!!
August 01, 2006

16:23

Danish cartoon controversy - Need for a new moral code

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Ok, I know this is a few months back (Feb), but I forgot to post it at the time - my first newspaper interview!

Published: 02/07/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)

By Samir Salama, Bureau Chief, Abu Dhabi

Need for a new moral code

Link to the original article here

Dr Abdullah Al Swaiji, a UAE academician, suggested a new ethics code for the international community "because all human achievements are meaningless without morals".

"Desecration of religions can never be justified and mocking prophets of Almighty Allah and religious symbols must be regarded as a crime and not freedom of expression. Muslims believe in this and the West should have the same belief," said Dr Swaiji, who represented the UAE in Arab-European dialogues symposiums.

The new ethics code, he explained, to be led by religious institutions the world over, would help to restore respect for cultures, civilisations and religions.

"Islam is one of the three great monotheistic religions and deserves the same respect that we demand for Christianity and Judaism. Islam does not accept blasphemy against any religion."

Sharla Musabih, a UAE human rights activist of US origin, said Muslims have a right to get angry over the anti-Prophet (PBUH) cartoons, but they should not react foolishly.

"They should exercise self-restraint. Being a Muslim I believe Muslims should set an example like the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

"They should react in a civilised manner to any provocative practice. They should know that many such practices are planned and they should react intelligently."

Sharla said: "We should embrace the West and accept their culture and consider any provocative acts as a test and that we will be rewarded by Almighty Allah if we succeed in that test through tolerance and acceptance of others.

"The West uses the media, so why do we also not use it to educate them about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)? Look at the movie The Passion of the Christ. Why do we not invest in the production of a big movie about the Prophet (PBUH) and his life to help people in the West explore Islam and its teachings?"

"People who desecrate Islam or the Prophet (PBUH) can be charged with blasphemy. But any violent reaction creates more enemies and distorts the image of Islam and Muslims in the West," she said.

Civilised manner

She regarded boycott as being a civilised reaction to the offending cartoons. "The more peaceful you are, the more attention you gain for your cause."

Shaikh Mohammad Soleiman Faraj, a scholar at the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Awqaf, said Islam teaches Muslims peace and to love each other.

"Islam teaches us how to respect people. We never ever mock and make jokes about any prophet because we believe in all the prophets that Almighty Allah has sent.

"The Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) taught Muslims that they should not speak about him in a manner that shows disrespect towards other prophets and messengers," Shaikh Faraj added.

He suggested that Muslims should use language very carefully in inter-religious dialogue and when they talk to the people of other faiths.

"The Prophet (PBUH) forbade from talking about the superiority of one prophet over another according to one's personal opinion and it should not be done to put down the other prophets or to create animosity, dissent and divisions."

Noura Matin, a human rights activist, said that Muslims have every right to feel offended by the anti-Prophet (PBUH) cartoons.

"It is as much Muslims' right to feel offended as it was the right of the organisations who printed them. Muslims have many choices as to how they can respond to this offence.

"They may choose to forgive, ignore or boycott. The more enlightened amongst them may also choose to consider why a Danish newspaper and many others chose to portray the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Islam in this way. And in that moment of self-reflection they may realise that Muslims have a lot of responsibility towards how people of other faiths perceive Islam. And once they realise this, it becomes their individual responsibility to do what they can to educate and change all the negative perceptions about Muslims and Islam."

"If some Muslims choose to respond by violence, demonstrations calling for jihad or murder, they aren't helping. They aren't improving the image of Islam or the life of Muslims. And continuing to act in this way like children throwing a tantrum will only serve to harden mindsets and ensure that the rest of the world continues to both misunderstand Muslims and portray their faith and community negatively."

14:59
EMERGENCY NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION - Saturday 5 August, 12 noon, Hyde Park, Speakers Corner
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*****Stop Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza***** Salaam Brothers and Sisters If you did not attend last Friday's demonstration against Israel's crime and murder in Lebanon and Palestine, PLEASE make an effort this week and attend this Saturday's protest at Hyde Park - Speaker's Corner (see details below). If we Muslims do not stand together as a united community and actively denounce the actions of Israel and every other country/government who silently condone Israel's barbaric destruction and killing THEN WE MUSLIMS ARE GUILTY TOO! Israel is destroying Palestine and Lebanon. Our brothers and sisters and their children in Palestine and Lebanon are dying and those who are hurt and surviving have no running water to drink, food is scarce, their homes have been destroyed and medical supplies are running out. PLEASE LEAVE THE COMFORT OF YOUR HOMES, STAND UP AND MAKE YOUR VOICE BE HEARD! •UNCONDITIONAL CEASEFIRE NOW
•END THE ATTACKS ON LEBANON & GAZA
•END BLAIR'S SUPPORT FOR BUSH'S WARS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *****Stop Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza***** EMERGENCY NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION Called by Stop the War Coalition, CND, Palestine Solidarity Campaign,
British Muslim Initiative, Lebanese community organisations When: Saturday 5 August, 12 noon
Where: Hyde Park, Speakers Corner (Marble Arch +)
The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) together with the Stop the War ,the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Palestine Solidarity Campaign are
holding a national demonstration on Saturday 5th August. This event promises
to be largest of its kind since the criminal Israeli war against the
Palestinian and Lebanese people began. BMI Chairman Muhammad Sawalha said, 'It is absolutely necessary that British
Muslims turn out in droves to send a clear message to the Blair's government
that its silence over Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon are
inconsistent with British values and detrimental to its international
standing.' The organizers of the demonstration would be handing in a letter to Prime
Minister Blair demanding: (a) An Unconditional and Immediate Ceasefire (b)
That Israel Stops its Attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and (c) That the Prime
Minister ends his support for Bush's wars.
July 27, 2006
15:42
London Protest Friday 28 July 5pm to 7pm
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CEASEFIRE NOW protests

•UNCONDITIONAL CEASEFIRE NOW

•END THE ATTACKS ON LEBANON & GAZA

•END BLAIR'S SUPPORT FOR BUSH'S WARS

London Protest Friday 28 July 5pm to 7pm
Downing Street, Whitehall, SW1

•Israel is using cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs against civilians.
George Bush and Tony Blair say keep bombing.

•Israel is deliberating bombing fleeing convoys and ambulances.
George Bush and Tony Blair say keep bombing.

•The UN says one million Lebanese fleeing the bombardment are facing a humanitarian disaster.
George Bush and Tony Blair say keep bombing.

This barbarism must stop now
Stop the War Coalition, CND, the British Muslim Initiative and Lebanese community organisations are calling for nationwide CEASEFIRE NOW protests on the evening of Friday 28 July.

The London CEASEFIRE NOW protest will be in Whitehall, 5pm to 7pm, when a letter to Tony Blair insisting that he demand an immediate ceasefire will be handed into 10 Downing Street.

------------------------------------------------------

It is the duty of all Muslims who are able, to support fellow Muslims who are living and perishing in areas of conflict, poverty/need and social justice.

If you can, join demonstrations and march in brotherhood/sisterhood - make your voice heard!

If you cannot march, then you can show your support through writing -blogs, editorials, articles, forums.

If you cannot write, then you can donate funds to help ongoing and established aid organisations.

Even if you do all of the above or if you can do none of the above, please make place in your prayers for all brothers, sisters and children in the world afflicted by conflcit, poverty/need and social injustice.
July 13, 2006

13:41

The Return of the Modern Hijabi

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February 04, 2006
5:14
Boys are funny
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Boys are funny. I don't mean funny looking (although I've see a few who might qualify!).

I mean funny like haha laugh out loud kind of funny. A boy's sense of humour really makes me laugh.

You see I am uniquely qualified to know this because I have observed boys in their natural environment.(natural environment = no girls) I work as a management consultant and overwhelmingly boys are in the majority. For the good part of the last five years every waking hour (as a consultant, if you are awake, you're working) has been spent in the company of these humorous creatures. At this point I feel well qualified to either (a) write a best selling self-help book on boy/girl communication or (b)not require a translator when speaking to my future husband. And so it is that I find myself working in Abu Dhabi with yet again a team that is all boys.

On a typical day me and the boys (four of them to be exact) will occupy a small room (too small for five of us) for around 13 hours of the day. The room has no windows and our only source of oxygen seems to be a small struggling plant. When we arrive, we eat breakfast together. A few hours later (still inside the room) our lunch is delivered. And a good few hours after that quite often we eat our dinner together as well (still inside the room). We repeat this pattern 5, 6 sometimes 7 days a week for months on end. I might also add that the air conditioning doesn't work. And being in Abu Dhabi, it can get a bit warm. And being in one room with no windows for 13 hours with five people and left over food smells, well it can also get a bit(!) smelly. I'm quite sure this contravenes some sort of international treaty on the humane treatment of animals………. unfortunately it doesn't seem to apply to us consultants.

So it is within this environment day in day out that I observe the boys. The first few days the boys are all on their best behaviour for they know they are in the presence of a girl. Somewhere around day three though, it all starts to come out. Off come the ties and out come the jokes. Mind you my team are pretty well mannered and never quite crude, but it is clear that after about day three they simply forget that I am a girl. And they get on with doing what they do best. Being boys.

If you are five people in a room for 13 hours a day, nearly every day of the week, you simply need humour. There is no other way to keep your sanity intact unless you find something or someone to laugh at. And as the long hours of the day go by, generally delirium sets in. And everyone is a comedian when they are delirious. So, thankfully most of my 13 hours day are spent laughing - either because the boys have said something funny or because of what they find funny.

More often than not the object of funniness will be a website that one of the boys has discovered. ~Websites that I can't imagine any girl would ever think (a)existed or (b) actually spend time surfing the internet to find.~

In any case, here for your viewing and laughing pleasure are the three websites the boys found very funny this week. I hope you find them as amusing as they did.

[www.mulletsgalore.com] is a website dedicated to mullets. - pictures of mullets, rating mullets, classifying mullets and hunting mullets (mullet owners be warned!). The boys were inspired to look up this website because of my guitar playing. Thats right. I am learning to play guitar. And the first song I am learning to play (because it only has two chords and my guitar teacher is a country music fan) is Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus. These days ole Billy Ray has de-mulletfied himself, but back in the 90's when Achy Breaky Heart was a hot hit - Billy Ray Cyrus was King of the Mullets. Despite his former mullet status, being a native Texan there is a bit of my heart which really loves Achy Breaky Heart .

http://www.realultimatepower.net the opening page of this website asks the question "Are you ready to get pumped?". The viewer has two choices. Yes or No. If you choose "No" you are immediately taken to Oprah's home page. (yes, that Oprah). If you choose "Yes" you are imediately transported to The Official Ninja Webpage. This is truly one for the boys. In case you weren't ready to get pumped and couldn't face going to http://www.realultimatepower.net here is the opening paragraph from http://www.realultimatepower.net

Hi, this site is all about REAL NINJAS. This site is awesome. My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about NINJAS. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Facts:

1. NINJAS are mammals.

2. NINJAS fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

[www.urbandictionary.com] is a slang dictionary where internet users define the words in their world. For example, the urban dictionary has this defintion for the term Football Widow.
Noun. A woman who must cope with the temporary death of her relationship during football games. Example: Nothing will draw Stalney away from the TV on Sunday. Jill realized she's become a football widow. The object of our falling from the table - water dribbling down chin - tears from our eyes humour this week was in fact not Football Widow but rather the word Deloitte. Some poor rather stressed, over worked colleagues (unlike us?!) of ours put in a good effort into defining what the word Deloitte (the firm we work for) actually means. Funny, sad, tearful, madness inducing - 10 definitions and all true [www.urbandictionary.com] . If you are a fellow consultant, lawyer, doctor, banker or any other profession in which you've signed away your youth to a form of indentured slavery then you will surely identify with the defintion. And if you are a Deloitte Partner reading this post - I deny everything and know nothing. I love my job.
February 03, 2006
11:56
Muhammad Cartoon - The right to be offended, The right to offend
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Errare humanum est. Translated from Latin, To Err is Human.

We humans are not perfect. We humans make mistakes. Our intrinsic nature is to err. One of the ways we often portray this intrinsic nature is by causing offence.

Many people believe that is it an individual's right to be offensive. To these people I say you do not understand the difference between what is a right and what is simply human nature.

A right can be defined as the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. Rights serve as rules of interaction between people, and, as such, they place constraints upon the actions of individuals or groups.

As individuals, as members of a community, as a living being on this Earth, we do not have a right to offend - it is not a power or privilege to which to we are justly entitled. No government or religious doctrine has ever unequivocally stated that an individual has a right to offend. You do however have the right to think and speak. And you do have the right to err. It is human nature to think and to communicate - how ever erroneous we may sometimes be in doing so (some of us more often than others!). And it is within this right to think and speak - even if doing so in error - that the ability and probability of being offensive occurs. So even if it is not our explicit right to be offensive, it is human nature to be so. And as humans we must expect that from time to time the human nature that compels us to communicate, is the same human nature that will lead us to err and is the same human nature that will cause us to offend.

In order to offend there must be an 'offendee'. Someone who feels offended. It is most probable that within your lifetime you have been and will be both the offender and offendee. Unlike the offender, the offendee has every right to feel offended. To feel is a power and privilege to which we humans are justly entitled. And to be offended is a feeling. It is a feeling that comprise many feelings - displeasure, anger, resentment, violation or wounded feelings.

In reference to the recent controversy, concerning the printing of the Muhammad Cartoon, I have this to say. The Danish newspaper and every newspaper or organisation who went on to print that cartoon or similar cartoons has the right to communicate as they see fit - however erroneous or offensive many people have found their communication. Along with this right to communicate comes the responsibility to accept that others will have feelings towards your communication. Those feelings may be positive. They may also be negative.

For example, I may feel like I want to tell someone I love them. If I tell them I love them, it could inspire a warm glowing feeling that makes them want to say the same in return. Conversely (more likely!) my saying I love you may inspire a cold sweat, fear and the urgent feeling of wanting to run very far away. As the communicator I must accept that is the right of the individual receiving my communication to feel however they feel.

The responsibility to resolve the feeling of being offended lies solely with those who feel offended - the offendees. The offender can only control how he or she communicates. With education or persuasion (from the offendee) he or she may choose not to communicate in ways that previously caused offence. They may however choose to continue communicating in ways that cause offence. Both remain their right.

The offendee has the right to respond to offence in order to resolve their feeling. The response may be forgiveness, anger, violence, doing nothing, ignoring the offender, boycotting the offender, educational discussion or if a government, the feeling of offence may be resolved by passing a law to outlaw the communication - taking away the right of the communicator to communicate in ways that caused the offence.

To those who feel offended by the Muhammad Cartoon, it is as much your right to feel this way as it was the right of the organisations who printed the cartoon to print it. As the offendee, you have many choices as to how you can respond to this offence. You may choose to forgive, to ignore or boycott or the more enlightened amongst you may also choose to consider why a Danish newspaper and many others chose to portray Muhammad (pbuh) and Islam in this way. And in that moment of self-reflection you may realize that we Muslims have a lot of responsibility for why many believe what they do about Islam - however erroneously. And once you realize this, it becomes your individual responsibility to do what you can to educate and change all that negatively impacts Muslims and Islam. If you aren't enlightened and you choose to respond by protesting or violence, know this: You aren't helping. You aren't improving the image of Islam or the life of Muslims. And continuing to act in this way - like children having a tantrum, throwing their toys out of the pram - will only serve to harden mindsets and ensure that the rest of world continues to portray Islam and Muslims negatively.

- Noura
4:26
Menu Anyone?
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Menu Anyone?
3:19
Favourite Websites
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Favourite Websites
3:19
Song of the Week
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Song of the Week
February 02, 2006
9:19
Who is Souad Massi?
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Last week whilst wandering dazed and confused around Abu Dhabi mall - a side effect of spending too much time cooped up in the office - I found myself in the Virgin Music store. I rarely buy cds. Although I love music, for some reason I've never been a big spender when it comes to buying it. On this night however, as soon as I walked in, the cd they were playing in the background immediately caught my attention. Accoustic, soulful, arabic and pure feminie sultriness - it was like nothing I had every heard. The singer's voice was like a reminiscent yearning and the music had this quality of evocative richness - so much so that I felt a rush of emotion, like I too was yearning and had I not been in a crowded music store, surely I would have danced. Apparently it was not just me who felt so captivated by her sound. The young Arab at the counter told me he hadn't been able to stop listening to the cd since buying it a week ago. The cd is, Mesk Elil (Honeysuckle), by Algerian singer Souad Massi.

Born in Algeria, Souad Massi spent her childhood in the North African country before immigrating to France and starting her music career. Somewhere between Tarab Gharnati, a musical genre found mainly in Algeria and East of Morocco, Spanish guitar, and French Pop, Souad Massi's music is heavily influenced by her immigration experience. This is Souad Massi's third album. Her first two albums, Deb and M'Bemba were widely acclaimed - winning her praise and appearances world wide including the UK WOMAD festival. Likened by some as having a sound similiar to Joan Baez or Tracey Chapman, she passionately mixes her Berber roots, flamenco beats and emotional lyrics - all influenced by a life that has been African, French and Muslim. Souad Massi is not content to be just an entertainer. Her songs are messages against social injustice and rally against the hypocrisy and violence that both the government and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists practise against the people of Algeria and worldwide."To remain silent would mean that the terrorists have won and that all the intellectuals they murdered died for nothing," says Souad firmly.
February 01, 2006
14:43
The Girls of Riad by Rajaa Al Sanea
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Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- "Banat al Riyadh" is the first novel by female Saudi author Rajaa al Sanea. Published by Saqi Books, it tells the story of four upper class Saudi girls living in the Saudi capital, named Sadim, Lamis, Qamra and Michele (or Mashael) by way of emails sent that chronicles the trials and tribulations of the young women and their successes and failures in love.
The cover of the 319-page novel was written by the prominent Saudi writer and current Minister of Labour Dr. Ghazi al Gosaibi, who said, “This work is worthy of being read. The novelist is very promising” and explained, “Rajaa al Sanea embarked on a great adventure that reveals the exciting world of young women in Riyadh.”
For her part, the author says, “My writings were not a response to a specific situation or feeling. Most of what I remember about my father who passed away when I was still a child is him always calling me the “little writer”. The teacher I was most fond of at school was my Arabic teacher. The lecture I enjoyed the most where the ones where the professor did not irritate me with a question on the lesson while I was writing down thoughts that crosses my mind.”
Written over a six-year period, the novel includes a mix of classical and colloquial Arabic and is peppered with transliterated English phrases. It deliberately uses an informal writing style, common in internet forums. It also alerts the reader than thousands of accounts are posted on the internet each year but are never published.

Focusing on the opinions, situations and beliefs of women in Saudi society, the novel exposes a section of society previously hidden, because of culture, traditions and religion. Perhaps young men will flock to the novel in an attempt to discover details they ignore about their female compatriots. Al Gosaibi said, “When the curtain is removed, the scene is exposed to us with all its funny and sad elements, with all the details unknown to those outside this enchanted world.”
Asharq al Awsat caught up with the rising soon after the publication of Banat al Riyadh as novel was increasingly being discussed in social and academic settings, with many wanting find out who the intrepid writer, currently a trainee doctor in a hospital in the Saudi capital, is.
Q: Why did you choose Ghazi al Gosaibi to write the introduction to your novel?
A: His contribution represented a dream come true! Ever since I was an adolescent, I was always impressed with Dr. al Gosaibi. I used to avidly read everything he wrote and follow his interviews on television and in the newspaper. I always sought to understand how one person could gather all this knowledge, diplomacy skills, self-confidence and charm. All my girlfriends knew he fascinated me. They used to hide his books away because they knew I would immediately start reading them.
When I started writing, I’d dream that he might one day read it. I never told anyone about this because I feared they would mock me. After I sent the final draft to al Saqi, I sent his Excellency a copy, just so I wouldn’t blame myself later for not trying to realize my dream. I was pleasantly surprised when I received his phone call a few days later. He had read my novel, despite his busy schedule and praised it!
It is hard to describe how happy I felt then, almost as if I’d received more than I had ever wished for. If the novel would result in nothing but Dr. al Gosaibi’s kind words, it would have been enough. Undoubtedly, the introduction to my book, by such a distinguished writer as Dr. Al Gosaibi was one of the main reasons the novel became popular; who had heard of Rajaa al Sanea before? His admiration for the novel is a source of great personal pride. I hope I can maintain this achievement and improve in my upcoming writings.
Q: Critics have said that a woman novelist needs experience to be able to put her ideas into writing. What is your reaction to that since you are only 23 years old?
A: Many people think I am forty of fifty. I hope readers don’t get the impression I am 60 or 70 from my next novel, because, at this rate, I will only be able to publish two or three novels before I supposedly die of old age! I may be mature but only in my thoughts and spirit, not my age. This is because of the way I was brought up and being around older people. I also enjoy listening to others’ problems and analyzing them according to the social circumstances.

Q: Your novel mentions some of the problems that Saudi women face.

A: Yes. My concerns are identical to those of many other women in Saudi Arabia. In fact, I aspire to be the first to signal the beginning of change. These are social changes that are not connected to religion. This is why I am not anxious about discussing them through my writings. Silence is evil. I hate negativity and refuse to wait for others to act on my behalf. It is my duty to myself and to my children in the future. I fear I will mellow out with age and lose my motivation and courage, as has happened with others.
Q: Why did you restrict yourself to writing about the upper class in Saudi Arabia?
A: If someone wrote about another person, does it mean that he believes the rest of humanity is irrelevant? I took the decision to write about characters that I am familiar with so that I could depict their characters and delve into them, in order for the final work to be truthful and convincing. Readers will notice that the majority of issues are not restricted to the upper classes. I used my personal knowledge of a specific class as a tool to communicate with readers of all classes. I am certain that I will discuss another segment of society in my forthcoming works, after I gain more experience by mixing with different groups in society.
Q: The life of the Saudi woman is somewhat secret… Do you believe your writing will expose you to attacks?
A: I was expecting to be criticized and I included that in the introduction of each letter. Differences in opinions should open the door for dialogue and not aggression. We suffer from an inability to accept rival opinions. Deciding whether to support or condemn a certain point of view requires courage and self-confidence. The majority know that I describe real events but certain groups have attacked me. Strangely, a number of individuals who criticized the novel admit they have yet read it!
Q: In a number of internet forums, many people expressed their consternation at your portrayal of young men in Riyadh. By contrast you wrote that the men from Jeddah and western Saudi Arabia were in a model in love and rationality.
A: The Saudi male is the product of his social milieu and conservative society. He is very attached to the ideas he was brought up on and respects all social customs, including how to treat women. It is well-known that the character of the Saudi male changes according to his location, whether in the Eastern Province, Najd , or the Hijaz. I believe that what we studied in geography class about the dry interior doesn’t just refer to the climate!
Q: Isn’t this a generalization?
A: Of course, but in my view it is acceptable because the novel discusses general issues and does not revolve around a single person. When one is examining such matters, it is obligatory to rely on generalizations. The novel does not feature an imaginary world but depicts reality as is. In everyday life, we admit that we generalize sometimes. For example, we say that the man from Hijaz is more expressive than his counterpart from Najd . Conversely, what is shameful for a young man in Riyadh is not necessarily considered disgraceful for someone from the Eastern Province, the Hijaz, or the North. It is a deep-rooted issue that predates this generation.
Q: You use of a mixture of classical and colloquial Arabic in the novel was criticized. What prompted you to mix language styles?

A: People will pass judgment on all novels, let alone the first novel by a young writer! This is natural. I try and learn from all positive criticism. No one knows that, out of fear of being condemned, I wrote the first few chapters in classical Arabic, including the dialogues. But I modified them because I couldn’t convince myself that women my age would use classical Arabic to speak amongst each other. How then was I supposed to convince the reader?
I thought long and hard about the language to use in the novel. I edited a lot of passages. If famous writers such as Naguib Mahfouz and Toufic al Hakim used local dialects in their novels, then I do not believe I have committed a literary crime by incorporating the Saudi dialect in my writing. I used the colloquial language to improve communication with my readers.
Q: Where you not worried that your friends in real life might get distressed by the novel, which included details about their lives?
A: Unlike in the novel, my close friends have been very supportive. They celebrated my success and continue to do so. Unlike my fictional friends, we are still close. They are very excited about providing me with ideas and suggestions for my next novel… Even their parents sometimes call me to congratulate me and tell me they are proud of me and will stand by me because I wrote about reality in a transparent and honest style. I dealt with a number of issues that are important to us in Saudi society.
Q: Who do you credit for your rise as a successful novelist?
A: My sister Rasha, for sure. She has always and continues to believe in me, even more than I do myself. At one point, I was despondent about whether I would complete the novel. By chance, she came across the first few chapters on her personal computer. She read them without telling me and never stopped hassling me until I’d written the last few lines! Rasha helped me with my university assignments and research given that she is also a dentist. In the proofreading stage, which lasted a year, she re-read the novel and gave me all the moral support that I needed.
Q: Did you really send a weekly email as some local newspapers mentioned?
A: The weekly emails and the replies were a product of my imagination. But to be honest, I feel very happy when I see readers wondering about these emails and trying to subscribe to the list!
Q: Is your reliance on electronic messages a recognition on your part that the internet will become the main venue for literature?
A: The internet represents a virtual world that has already become intertwined with real life, despite attempts by some people to separate the world of literature and ideas from fact. However, I consider this schism as antithetical to literature and its real purpose. Most of us deal with modernity with fear. This applies to writers and readers. I see no problem in writing with a realist style, as long as it is well-thought of. Far from undermining the value of the text, it increases it.
Q: Will you write another novel?
A: Of course, this novel will not be the last. I have several ideas in the pipeline. However, Banat al Riyadh will make matters more difficult. I need to take my time and think carefully in order to be able to create something as impressive. I don’t think I will use poetic language as a basis for my next novel. I might try and combine a number of literary styles in order to achieve my own style whilst maintaining a simple narrative structure and avoiding pretentious expressions.
Q: In your own words, how has the novel been received?
A: I think it has proven rather popular. I expect more, especially regarding literary critique and social commentary. I am eager to listen to different opinions and want to benefit from this experience as much as possible in order to use what I’ve learned for my forthcoming works.

Link back to the original article here
January 30, 2006
23:15
symmetry of sand
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symmetry of sand
14:19
awake for fajr
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awake for fajr
January 29, 2006
7:10
I carry your heart
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i carry your heart with me i carry it in my heart i am never without it anywhere i go, you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling i fear no fate for you are my fate, my sweet i want no world for beautiful you are my world,my true and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart i carry it in my heart

- ee cummings
7:06
Modern Hijabi
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What is a modern hijabi?

hijabi - A Muslim woman who covers her hair with a scarf (hijab) and maintains a modest persona in public. modern hijabi - A Muslim woman who chooses to wear hijab because it espouses the core beliefs and ethics that she holds close to her heart. She integrates Islam into a contemporary life style and is not constrained by erroneous cultural interpretations of Muslim women's equality and rights. She is an independent thinker who pro-actively shatters the negative and oppressed stereotype of Muslim women. The modern hijabi uses her voice and intellect to enrich debates concerning profound issues of change, tradition, pluralism, diversity and culture in global society
6:34
"Yep the hijab does a wonderful job protecting women" - Response by Noura Matin
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The following article is my response to an article entitled, "Yep the hijab does a wonderful job protecting women" written by Julie Birch, columnist at The Times, and published in August 2005. You can read the full article HERE.
Julie Birch doesn't have any idea about what its really like to be a Muslim woman wearing the hijab or the realities of our choice to wear it. It is a sad occurrence that in some countries Islam has been corrupted and is influenced more by the culture and politics of a largely uneducated male population. This is not the case in the West and the resulting images of women from those countries should not be used as the "you've seen one, you've seem them all" poster campaign for Muslim women on a whole. This negative, weak, oppressed stereotype of Muslim women continues to hold power largely because the media find it easier to propagate old pictures, images and stock stereotypes of us poor, abused, put upon hijab wearing Muslim women than to go out and do a little bit of real research and actually speak Muslim women in the West.

In every society and culture there are social ills - abuse, pornography, violence, corruption. The hijab is not a protection against abusive relationships anymore than the traditional wedding vows of

"to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish"

are for women in the West.

Like the wedding vows, hijab is something you do and something you promise because it espouses core beliefs and ethics that you hold close to your heart.

No woman with any sense of reality either on her blissful wedding day when she repeats the wedding vows or when as a Muslim she adopts the hijab is foolish enough to believe that either - vow or hijab- is a panacea like protection against future abuse or genitive impact from other social ills. And because neither is a panacea like protection, does that mean women in the West should stop getting married or that Muslim women should take off their hijab? For some women this might be the answer and if it is - that is their choice! As for the women who continue to get married by saying traditional vows or for Muslim women wearing hijab, both know that neither will ultimately protect them from a cheating or abusive husband. The choice however belongs to the woman. And women will continue to make this choice as long it continues to espouse their core beliefs.

The good, the bad and the ugly - its all out there in society whether you or Muslim or not. But like most things in life the 80/20 rule should be applied. If you are a journalist looking to write a story on Muslim women, don't make the same mistake as Julie Birch and many others who rely on recycled, flawed third-party information that represents only 20% of Muslim women. Be Brave! Come speak to the other 80% Muslim hijab wearing women and see who we really are.

- Noura Matin

August 2005
6:28
Yep, the hijab does a wonderful job protecting women - Article by Julie Birch at The Times
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The following article was written by JULIE BURCHILL columnist with The Times and published on August 6th, 2005. [women.timesonline.co.uk] Read my response to the article HERE
SO CERTAIN moderate Muslims are now suggesting that devout women can take off their shrouds and walk free in God’s sunshine. How very magnanimous of them. It turns out that rigging yourself up like a parrot’s cage with the covering on is less to do with flaunting your devilish female charms and thus inflaming bestial male passion, as we were told, than allowing Muslim women to go “unmolested”. So now, if wearing the hijab means women will be molested by us nasty infidels, they can go without.

I don’t know which theory is the most rubbish; the first implies that all women in their natural states — ie, when not shrouding the bodies God gave them from head to toe — are sluts, and all men sex-crazed savages.

And as for allowing women to go unmolested . . . words fail me. The fact is that most Muslim women who are beaten, raped or killed — as with all women — are beaten, raped and killed by their own husbands, in their own homes, not by slavering strangers up dark alleyways. And on top of that, Muslim women also have to contend with so-called “honour” killings from their male cousins, brothers, sons and fathers. Yep, the hijab really does a great job of protecting them there! Further afield, the word of women in Sharia courts is worth exactly half that of men, even in rape cases. In Iran 9-year-old girls may be hanged — the age is 12 for boys. It’s great how the hijab stops its wearers from being unfairly put upon, innit!

Of course the profoundly creepy-sounding Assembly for the Protection of Hijab has rejected Dr Zaki Badawi’s suggestion. And no doubt the usual Western apologists for Islamofascism will now be pointing out with great excitement that “Muslim women choose to wear the veil”. So what! Women choose lots of dumb and wicked things, as men do. Women preside over the genital mutilation of baby girls in many countries. There are women who stay in abusive relationships for decades, and women who exchange passionate correspondence with brutal serial killers. That doesn’t make it big or right.

I would like to think that the female Uncle Toms — Aunt Fatimas? — who espouse the half-life of the hijab are far less representative of brave, compassionate Muslim womanhood than the brilliant comic Shazia Mirza, who jokes that the veil comes in very handy for those days when a girl just doesn’t have time to Immac her moustache. Or of Bushra Nasir, the headmistress of an Islamic school in East London, responding to the the findings of a recent YouGov poll that claimed that 32 per cent of British Muslims questioned thought that British society was immoral and sexually decadent, and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end: “If 32 per cent of young Muslim men really do believe that British society is immoral and must be brought to an end, then I ask myself, if they hate it so much, why do they live here?”

Muslim women seem blessed with great strength and fortitude, not to mention modesty — a fine quality, so long as it does not become mania or smugness. But what a view Islam has of its own women, and what a sad gap between the genders there seems to be, that some young men consider their female co-religionists such shocking bores that they would rather blow themselves up and die in order to hang out with 72 virgins rather than stay alive and enjoy the pleasures of living, breathing, imperfect female companionship. Looking at it that way, the drunken high-jinks of the lads and lassies of Faliraki doesn’t seem half so bad. Better to die decadent than moribund any day; better to pig out on life than to choose death. And far, far better to feel the sun on your face than live your life in the shadows of some imagined sin.
January 28, 2006
14:55
Abu Dhabi Sunset
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Abu Dhabi Sunset
14:47
Subtle Diversions
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Subtle Diversions
January 27, 2006
13:48
Where in lives love?
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My soul grown old from a life lived bold;

Where in lives love?

Sombre reflections attuned to life without lasting connections;

Where in lives love?

A painted fainted smile my mask to those whom I beguile;

Where in lives love?

A garden of fading memories overgrown by hope filled reveries;

Where in lives love?

Silent echoes of a time once shared, my soul once innocent stripped and bared

Where in lives love?

- Noura 2005
August 12, 2005
6:56
www.modernhijabi.com Guest book
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Welcome to the http://www.modernhijabi.com Guest book
Salaams and Hello

I don't who you are you, where you're from, how you found me, if you're muslim or if you're not......but whoever you are I am happy you came to visit. I hope you enjoyed your look around.

Please let me know you were here and feel free to share your thoughts...

Don't be a stranger, don't be shy, come back again and let me know you came by!
1:42
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Purple Hibiscus
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Young Nigerian's first novel blazes with insight of new and old religion

As a girl in Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote story after story about the sort of people she read about in books: "white people with blue eyes who ate apples and had winter." Only as a teenager, after reading Chinua Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart" and realizing her people's own stories were worth telling, did she begin describing the world she knew. Yet when she graduated first in her high school class, she abandoned writing to enroll in pre-med. Doctors could always find work, and in her troubled homeland, Sunday churchgoers pray not only for peace and love, but also for U.S. visas.

"I have noticed about my people that we tend not really to put emphasis on what we would like to do; instead we do what we have to do," said Adichie, 26. "It happens with being Nigerian that you have to make sacrifices. I thought maybe I should be a doctor and write part-time because writing isn't that serious," she said.

Dissecting frogs made her realize that the sacrifice would be too great. Adichie came to the United States in 1998 to study her first love, writing. Her extraordinary debut novel, "Purple Hibiscus," is the new selection of the Talking Volumes regional book club, a public service project to build community through reading, founded by the Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio and the Loft Literary Center.

Purple Hibiscus

The story, recounted by a 14-year-old girl, captures the love and conflict of a family whose patriarch is staunchly Catholic. Against the backdrop of a corrupt, crumbling society, the implacable force of religious fundamentalism plays out not against secular humanism, but against the animist practices of tribal elders.

"I wanted to write about how I wish that people would be more accommodating in their faith," said Adichie (whose name is pronounced chee-ma-MON-da ah-DEECH-yeh). "It's fine to be Catholic, but people who choose to follow the old way of ancestral worship are not devils."

Nigeria made headlines recently when a woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery under the law of Sharia. While the nation of 120 million is mainly Islamic in the north, where that controversial case arose, in the south it is mostly Christian, with Pentecostalists gaining rapidly on the dominant Catholics.

Although Adichie was raised a Catholic, "Purple Hibiscus" is not autobiographical. Her father, a retired professor of statistics, is a fervent believer but "the kind who makes room for dissent." Adichie, who remembers being criticized as a child by a priest for asking too many questions, still considers herself "a Catholic of sorts."

When she attended Drexel University in Philadelphia, Adichie was a lay reader at "a lovely, warm church with all kinds of people, open and embracing and Catholic." After she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University, where she lived with her older sister, she quit attending except when their parents visited, because she disliked the hard-line attitude at the local parish.

She blames religion for "feeding people so much nonsense" in God's name. In Nigeria, on a continent where AIDS education and treatment are especially critical, it is considered improper to talk about sexually transmitted diseases -- except to brand them the devil's work -- and taboo even to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality, she said.

Her 71-year-old father remembers when the first missionaries arrived in his hometown in the late 1930s. Until then, the indigenous beliefs were not institutionalized via churches and schools. "Sometimes I wonder if they recognized it as religion, in the sense that it was just the way things were; it wasn't apart. 'That stream is dedicated to the goddess so you don't go there to bathe, you go to the other stream.'

"Maybe I idealize it, but there's something purer and true about that time," she said, bursting into peals of laughter. "My dad would be horrified to hear me say that."

Home and away

Adichie uses her hometown, the university town of Nsukka, and her ancestral village as principal settings for "Purple Hibiscus." Her father taught in Nsukka and her mother rose through the college administration to become its dean of students. Two of her sisters were born in the United States when their father attended the University of California, Berkeley, in the late 1960s. With dual citizenship, one is a pharmacist in Nigeria, the other is a doctor in Connecticut. One of her brothers, an engineer, lives outside London. Another is studying computer science at Adichie's alma mater in Connecticut and living with their sister. The third just graduated from college in Nigeria, in agricultural engineering, and hasn't yet decided where to settle.

"I would've liked to be in Nigeria with everyone in my family there," said Adichie. "My book wouldn't have happened, though. My sister is a doctor and she has a practice that's doing well in Connecticut and she probably wouldn't have that if she had stayed in Nigeria. So you make those choices, just because Nigeria is truly crumbling and I don't know that it will come back together."

The economy and the educational system were much stronger when she was a child, attending schools for children of the university faculty. In fifth grade, she wrote a play and her class performed it. She won a writing prize and her teacher, Mrs. Kalu, pronounced her destiny. "She said to everybody there, 'She's going to be our star!' and I remember thinking, 'Oh, I hope so!' I would write things and give them to her and she actually took her time with my little stories."

Her family teased her when she boasted that they would one day read her books, said her sister Dr. Rosemary Maduka. One brother called Adichie "Joseph the Dreamer" after the biblical character. "When a lot of her age-mates were hanging out going to parties, that wasn't my sister," Maduka said. "She found more joy in reading, reading, reading."

Even in their relatively isolated hometown, Adichie and her family felt the aftershocks of violence that erupted in the capital of Abuja and in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, with 12 million inhabitants. Coups were staged in 1983 and 1993, and an abortive coup in 1990 resulted in the execution of 69 alleged plotters.

"It's not like we heard the shelling," said Adichie, "but it affects you when you hear the announcement on the radio that you have a new head of state. Then you see the prices rising in the markets, you see the people lose jobs and soldiers seem to rule, literally rule, over everything."

Ten years ago, Defense Minister Sani Abacha took power and dissolved all democratic political institutions. A year later, after a strike in Nigeria's giant oil industry, Abacha closed down media. Only after his death in 1998 did the situation change. When Olusegun Obasanjo took over a newly democratic nation in 1999, he faced "a dysfunctional bureaucracy, collapsed infrastructure" and periodic communal violence, according to the U.S. State Department.

Bribery has become an everyday occurrence. Laughing musically, Adichie recounted an incident she transposed into her novel, when she and her mother were driving behind a car that was flagged down by police. Rather than pull over to pay a bribe, as is customary, the driver just rolled down his window and threw money out. "Then again, these [police] men are very poor and have poor training," she said. "It's all part of a bigger thing."

Nigeria was at the forefront of the emergence of the African novel, through the work of such eminent authors as Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and Achebe, whose most famous book is echoed in "Purple Hibiscus" from its opening line: "Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion. . . ."

The country does not have much of a "reading culture" anymore, Adichie said. Visiting home this summer, she found only a few bookstores in Lagos, selling mostly imported books, mostly self-help titles such as "How to Become a Millionaire in Five Days."

Part of the problem, as here, is the juggernaut of visual culture -- TV and movies -- and the downplaying of education, said Cyril Ibe, the Nigerian-born host of Chicago's "Afri scope Radio" show.

"Writing in Africa has been seriously affected by the erosion of institutions over the past 30 years," said Binyavanga Wainaina, the Kenyan winner of this year's Caine Prize for African writing, an award for which Adichie was shortlisted. "There is very little faith that ordinary Africans can create any form of art, and that our own issues will emerge through such a process. In my own country, anything that comes from grass-roots creativity is discouraged. Ideas must come from above. This does not make for good writing."

"It makes me sad," said Adichie, "but even for the Nigerian rich there's an uncertainty about life that I don't see when I'm in the so-called West. It's like, 'We have money, but we don't know what will happen tomorrow.' " She wants to try to make "Purple Hibiscus" affordable in her homeland. "If you translate $20 to Nigerian money, that's about how much many people make in a month."

It was college that provided the way out for her. Marilyn Piety, who teaches philosophy at Drexel, remembers her as "very political and fairly religious, too, intellectually and emotionally mature," a student with strong opinions whose first paper decried U.S. oil companies for fomenting civil unrest and despoiling the environment in Nigeria.

School keeps her here on a work visa, since last month teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. With fewer than a dozen stories published, she had a story chosen for the annual O. Henry collection. Ibe believes a boom in popularity for African-born writers is near at hand, already taking root in Europe.

Adichie is building her next novel around the Nigerian civil war of the late 1960s, which Americans know mostly from news photographs of starving Biafran children. Most of her research is oral, coaxing stories from village elders.

In a few years she plans to return home, to give back to Nigeria, maybe by starting a writers' colony. Besides watching news shows and voicing her strong political opinions, Adichie has no passion other than writing. "Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't for my writing, I don't think I would be me," she said. "It's just such a part of me that there isn't room in my life for anything else."

Her values were forged in the adversity of a nation tottering between tyranny and freedom, colonialism and self-worth, order and chaos. Those values inform her fiction but do not overwhelm it. "Unlike many African writers," said Wainaina, "she does not let ideologies influence the engagement of her characters. Her concern is the human condition. Ideology can only be an offshoot of human conditions."
1:02
Ekow Eshun - Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa
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Looking for myself

Gabriel Gbadamosi finds grounds for hope in a black Briton's search for identity in Black Gold of the Sun by Ekow Eshun

Saturday July 9, 2005
The Guardian

Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa

by Ekow Eshun
230pp, Hamish Hamilton, £17.99

Ekow Eshun's book comes in reaction to the pervasiveness of British racism, his brush with mental ill health - six times more prevalent among black people in Britain than in the white population - the respite he found in hard work and his resulting elevation to editor of Arena magazine, TV pundit and, most recently, artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He is part of a new and startlingly successful generation of black British personalities in the arts, alongside the Turner prize-winning artist, Chris Ofili, who has designed the jacket for Black Gold of the Sun

For my money, bombing around Africa for five weeks - on foot, by bicycle, car, bus and taxi - only to find that the children see you as burenyi (white) seems the least interesting part of this fascinatingly personal excursion. Any of my generation of English Africans (for want of a better term) could have told him about being black in England and white in Africa. But, like Black Prophet, his biblically-driven Ghanaian beach rasta, we, too, would probably have ended up telling him what to think instead of letting him frame his own questions and find his own answers. There is no template, as he says, to being English or African: you make it up as you go along. This is a journey everyone has to make for themselves.

What he finds, in a childhood, adolescence and early adulthood detained in England by Ghana's 1974 coup - memories interwoven with the episodic account of his return to Africa - is a story of the refugee's distress: banging his head against the wall as a child, suffering outrageously racist taunts, being given detention in school for "too much lip". He settles some scores, although names have been changed "to protect the innocent and the guilty". While the racism and much else is familiar to me, what is not is the depth of his unhappiness.

A large part of Eshun's obvious alienation stems not from the "facts" of his dual heritage but from what he calls their "sensibility". His response to the effects of being exiled from Ghana and being black in Britain was to blank them out, to shut down emotionally, operate on the surface and prevent anyone getting close enough to pop the question: "Where are you really from?"

The loss, of course, is to himself, to the unresponsive, unknown "me" of his search. But its consequences follow him on his trip to Africa in a sense of persistent, unhinging dread. He fears the return of himself as "other" - as black man, as burenyi, as Englishman, as racist, as a potential assassin, the executor of his dreams. Eshun describes the effect of this systematic self-effacement, the hollowing out of public persona and private sensibility, as "the deadpanning of identity".

Interestingly, Deadpan (1997) is a short film produced by another contemporary black British artist and Turner prize- winner, Steve McQueen, who takes the place of Buster Keaton in a well-known visual gag - the side of a building falls over on top of him. Luckily for both, they happen to be standing on the one spot where a loft window space falls through them, leaving their character untouched, disturbed by nothing more than wind and dust. Apart from the fact that it really does takes courage to let a building fall on top of you and not flinch, the update makes a number of subtle points about the shift in the meaning of the gag once a black man has stepped into the frame.

The deadpanning of identity may well be the cost for Eshun and McQueen's generation of fitting themselves into the frame of British institutional and cultural life, but both writer and artist appear to be tackling that danger head on. If this characterises a moment of change for black British artists and writers, it is very welcome.

Black Gold of the Sun has a lot to say about the history and experience of being black, particularly in relation to the Atlantic slave trade. The "black gold" of the title refers to slaves, and slavery is still, it seems, the bedrock of any consciousness of being black.

Searching for a way to communicate how he feels at the end of the book, Eshun reaches initially for the concept of "double consciousness" from a seminal work on the impact of race prejudice, WEB du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Happily, he comes across a first edition in the library of Du Bois's old house in Accra. "Being black", echoes Eshun, "means standing both inside and outside society: seeing the world as white people do while reaching out to touch it as a black person." That does sound good, but I don't buy its return to the comfortable fixities of black and white. Time has moved on.

Much better is the way that he becomes reconciled, ostensibly to his older brother, Kodwo, but also to his own questioning search for a language adequate to feeling. For me the most moving, lucid and intimately focused passage in the book is when the brothers meet and exchange confidences after a long estrangement. Their shared language, drawn from the super-hero comics, sci-fi books and records of their youth, spins around a discussion of Kodwo's book, Black Atlantic Futurism. It is dedicated, as is this book, to the shared experience of the young Eshuns: "It's about us ... The New Mutants are the outcasts. They don't fit in because they're too thoughtful for their own good. They don't have the street smartness society expects from its black kids." Like slaves, like American musician Sun Ra, like children wrenched from their lives in Ghana, in the end, the Eshuns, too, were "abducted by aliens".

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