The real revolution

A 10 year old boy living with his father and younger sister was leading a miserable life; his father was cruel, old-fashioned and authoritarian. He never granted him permission to go out with his friends and his friends could not come over to his house. He did not allow him to play or do any of the things that he loved and if he saw him making any movement he didn't like, he would beat him and lock him in his room for days. The poor boy had nothing much to do and his only resort for some fun was to tease his younger sister. Sometimes, the boy wished to beat and torture her but was too afraid of his father, so they played the 'master slave" game. She was always to be the slave. The father didn't mind the game as long as they were quiet. The poor little sister had nothing to do either and at the end got used to the game and with time even thought that it was not bad. One day, as they were playing the 'master slave' game, they heard a noise down the street, they ran to the window and saw a kid from the neighborhood running in the street and being chased by his father who was running like a crazy man with a huge stick and threatening to kill him when he gets hold of him, but as he was too fat and too old, he could not run as fast as his son, and then suddenly he tumbled, his head hit the ground and he died instantly. The young boy saw his father dead, took a deep breath and started screaming: I am free, I am free! The kids on the window saw that and wished they were in that boy's shoes. They head straight to their father's room and saw that their father had also been watching from his window. It is very hard to imagine what happened next. Many scenarios could have happened. The father could have thrown himself from the window. The little boy could have pushed him over the edge. Or he could have said; father, you should allow us some more freedoms. The father could have locked his kids in their rooms and starved them until they begged for pardon. The fathers in the neighborhood could have come to the rescue of the father, or others from farther neighborhoods could have poked their noses into this mess. But come to think of it, what options does the little girl have? Now imagine if the kid running the street was rather a girl.

The infamous Roumieh Prison: get inspired

I have been inside Roumieh prison a few times (visiting that is) and I never felt more in danger inside than outside those thick high walls and wires, or to put it better I never felt less in danger outside than inside the prison. People outside are no more free. It is inside a prison, that the highest forms of humanity can be seen with bare eyes: Regret, vengeance, solitude, rancor, anger, hopelessness, but also a lot of pride, are the walking spirits there. I never understood why cellphones, TVs, and internet -why not?- are prohibited inside. It is not a man deprived of his freedom you should fear but a man stripped of his dignity. That's what you learn from the big masters. Get inspired:

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today. Albert Camus

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. Fyodor Dostoevsky

In jail a man has no personality. He is a minor disposal problem and a few entries on reports. Nobody cares who loves or hates him, what he looks like, what he did with his life. Nobody reacts to him unless he gives trouble. Nobody abuses him. All that is asked of him is that he go quietly to the right cell and remain quiet when he gets there. There is nothing to fight against, nothing to be mad at. The jailers are quiet men without animosity or sadism. All this stuff you read about men yelling and screaming, beating against the bars, running spoons along them, guards rushing in with clubs -- all that is for the big house. A good jail is one of the quietest places in the world. Life in jail is in suspension. Raymond Chandler

Rather the Invention of Evil

I watched today this movie "the Invention of Lying". It is not a great movie but the idea behind it is sharp although the movie fails to take it to the extreme. The movie takes you to a make believe setting where saying the truth is the only way of life and where you basically cannot say or think or imagine what is not true, where fiction does not exist, and where you don't know what isn't. The word "lie" has no place in this world, it simply does not exist, because it cannot be, or as the movie puts it "to say something that wasn't". The movie poses as a comedy although it hardly makes you laugh but it gets you thinking: in a world where truth is absolute, where the lack, or in this case, the absence of truth does not exist, what you lose is more than emotional and creative thinking, and more than the pursuit for happiness, and much more than the philosophical quest for some meaning, what you lose is freedom. It is evil not righteousness that sets you free after all.

Enlightenment

You can't teach a bird to fly and then expect it to like the cage.

I am God

A free pigeon perched today on my balcony balustrade and started mocking my caged love birds. They became suddenly agitated and I feared they would go on a hunger strike. They had been happily living in that prison when they knew no other way. I know that they would die if I set them free and they don't know that freedom can only come at a cost. I am their God and I am no different than any God in that regard. I am their occupier and I am no different than any occupier. They instill in me a great feeling of guilt whenever I look at them. I feel like a prison guard when I feed them and ashamed when I set them free in a closed room, a bigger cage. I want to give them a choice, self determination, and freedom but then they will have to die although they wont have to cover up their nakedness.