An update

So ... the past few months, since I last blogged, have been rather challenging.  I have had this chest pain which refuses to go away, and what makes it really frustrating is that no one seems to know what's causing it!

While it's easy to dwell on the terrible things such an experience presents, I am finding that it has brought out many things -- good things if I may say -- that really make me happy!  I have friends and coworkers who are going way out of their way to be supportive -- with one friend practically putting her life on hold to fly from California to be with me.  My coworkers drive me back and forth to work, and even bought me a cot to lie down in when I'm not feeling well enough.  The heartfelt concern and support I've been getting is nothing far short of incredible!  I don't know what I did to deserve these wonderful people in my life, but whatever it is, I'm very glad to have them.  Just everything else does, this too shall pass!

Happy Independence day America, Oqbal Falasteen

This article was inspired by a message I saw somewhere wishing a happy Independence Day for America and hoping the same for Palestine.

This is a poem about the Palestinian struggle I’ve always memorized since I was a little boy. As I grew older, however, I found out that it applies to any struggle. Loosely translated (words written with such eloquence can never be properly translated), “That’s the destiny of man, to drink the bitter and the nasty; but so long as blood goes through his vein, he will always continue to learn. He who battles the high waves will ultimately make it to shore, and a breeze can turn into a hurricane, and night is always followed by day.”.

The poem is written in colloquial Arabic, which makes its appeal even more stunning. It is easy to express one’s self in an intellectual way, but to be able to convey such powerful ideas into words that can be understood even by the most illiterate is a powerful and rare ability. I hope you enjoy it.

هذا هو قدر الإنسان, يتجرّع مرّ وعلقم
قدّ ما يخفق هالشريان, الإنسان بيتعلم

وِالّي يصارع هالتيّار, أخرته بيرس عالبَرّ
والنسمة تولّد إعصار, والعتمة بيعقبها الفجر

A New Recognition

I have been recently humbled by an honor I was afforded by the Qatar Social and Cultural Center for the Blind, who chose to feature me on the “distinguished persons” part of their web site along with persons such as David Blunkett, the former Home Office Secretary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Click here to read the published article in English, and here to read it in Arabic.

The 4th of July

So, it’s the first of July (yes, that heading right above this article is correct). This is my 18th July in the United States, but my first as an American. Yes, it was a long fight to get here, and I must say it’s been worth every bit of it.

Despite my misgivings about this country’s foreign policy in some parts of the world, especially the Middle East, which is where I was born and raised, I have no doubt in my mind when it comes to the overall decency of the people of this country. Yes, there are the extremists, the racists, the yahoos and the jobos, but show me a country which doesn’t have its share of those.

Americans are among the highest (if not the highest) charity contributing people in the world. In my travels around this country, I’ve seen a general respect for human life, human dignity and the human spirit. There are many people who get up everyday to do the right thing. They have a set of ideals that govern their lives, and many are willing to stand up for those ideals.

America is not a country that does no wrong. America, to me, is a set of values and ideals, ones that govern our culture. They are the values of freedom, respect for others, and fair play – give everyone their fair chance, irrespective of who they are, what they believe in and where they come from. So long as the majority of us are committed to those ideals, this country will be “America”. As soon as we abandon those ideals to those of religious extremism or racism, whether in the name of security or so called patriotism, this country will lose all that made it what it is today – it will no longer be America.

The past few years have tarnished the reputation of this country around the world and planted grave doubts about its commitment to its core values. My faith in the American people and their belief in their core values, however, was not misplaced. Americans overwhelmingly chose to reverse the dark course that their country took. I hope that the commitment to the core values continues, and on my part, I pledge here for all to hear: “my country right or wrong. If it’s right, I will support it, if it’s wrong, I’ll do what I can to correct it.”

Follow my blog on Twitter!

So, digital world, here I come! You'd think I would have been there sooner, but well, what can I say, better late than never.

From now on, anything I publish here will be on Twitter (well, not exactly, just the title will be). If your curiosity is peaked, you can click and read the whole article. What? You don't know what Twitter is? Don't worry about this then, or, learn about it here!

I've been to many places ... too bad none of them is real

The last few weeks have been rather challenging. In early may, a terrible and unceasing wave of chest pain came over me. I underwent several MRI's and other imaging, all of which revieled nothing!

In trying to manage the situation, I was put on pain killers (a strong dose of it). I've never been on pain killers this much before (sure I've taken the odd one or two when needed and prescribed, but never this many pills at a time). I had to resort to taking as much as four tablets at once, and that put me in a whole different world! This world was pleasant; but it was not real. Besides the fact that my pain was hidden away (pain killers never really kill the pain, they just mask it), I felt as though my mind was wandering in many places -- those of calm and anger, those of peace and anxiety and those of happiness and sadness. in addition to being masked from my pain, I was also masked from reality. My feelings were vivid, my imagination was ritch and my emotions were all over the place, but my whole reality was ... not real as it were! That's what drugs do to you!

It is nearly the end of June, and my chest seems to be calming down and my pain is on its way out. The world I leave behind, the world of pain killers is somewhat different from the world I entered into. There were many things I was looking forward to this summer, including a promising relationship, but as the world of pain killers is behind me, so is this relationship -- quite honestly, I'm not sure why! Pain is a tough beast to battle. For those of you who have never had to fight it, I hope you never do; and for those of you that have had their battles with it, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Now that I am back into reality, it is up to me to make the best of it, and that I will.

I have put off many things this summer, and I don't know how much of them I can get back, but I do know that I am still going to take the Foreign Service Officer test, the one scheduled in June and had to be rescheduled to sometime in October. I have a life ahead of me, and no matter what reality throws at me, I'm still going to catch it and play it back -- there is no other choice; for a traveler can never travel if he stops.

Onward and forward.

fragen sie doch

It's amazing how we can spare ourselves making the most foolish of mistakes simply by asking! This was made abundantly clear to me on one of my recent oversees journeys.

On November 8, 2007, I was on a German Lufthansa flight from Frankfort Germany to Denver Colorado. As I was making my way through the aisle to find my seat all the way towards the back of the airplane (I walked so much I thought I was already in Denver), a flight attendant was apparently trying to gesture to me wanting to know how she could help. Naturally, I failed to see her gestures, since obviously my reason for her thinking that I wanted her help was the very fact that I couldn't see! It seems as though one of her bemused looks targeted her purser, and it seemed as though she was trying to mouth some words off to him presumably asking him what she should do! He looked at her and exclaimed in a normal, firm and professional tone of voice "fragen sie doch!", which simply means "ask!".

After getting over her shyness and being utterly surprised at me being able to converse with her in German, I safely got to my seat, and the purser himself, a Mr. Oblouvskey, came and introduced himself and asked "what can we do to be of help to you on this flight?" -- a simple yet very powerful question! I explained to him that I did not foresee any need for help during the flight, and that I will be sure to let them know if there was any exception to that on a case by case basis! Needless to say, the flight was one of my most pleasant ones! The statement that stuck with me ever since is "fragen sie doch" -- ask!

Blogging again -- maybe!

So ... here I am, blogging again. Why you say? Well, lots has changed, and I guess I feel I need to let something -- anything out!

So my lawsuit is over -- yes it is; and ... I won! If you're curious, go to http://www.uscitizenatlast.com/

So what's next for the traveler! Well, I must say I am enjoying the feeling of being "in between" journeys as it were. I usually don't like idle time, but now I seem to be enjoying it, and that's OK!

At the present moment, I'm working as a state employee for the Department of Services for the Blind in Washington State. I love the place, the people, but I just can't stand the weather! It's cloudy, rainy and overcast almost all the time! I have a difficult time adjusting to winter in June -- last year, proper summer did not begin until well after the forth of July!

So will the traveler be traveling again you ask? The answer is ... well, he wouldn't be a traveler if he didn't travel! I have applied for the State Department, and will be sitting down for the Foreign Service Officer Test on June 6 at 1:30 PM. The short end of it is that if I am hired, I'll simply be a US diplomat; one who gets paid to travel!

Let's see how all that ends up being -- as the Germans say, "Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat", or "in time comes certainty".

This is not it of course -- my life can never be summed up in a paragraph or two, but this is just a "snapshot" if you like. Lots more is happening and is likely to happen, but I really don't know how often I'll be blogging -- so feel free to use an old fashion way of communication -- yes, that's it, personal communication. Call, email, text; just let me know you're there and you care.

Blogging again!

It's been quite a while since I blogged – over a year or so, and what a year it's been! Much has changed – even the place where I live and what I do for work! Too much to talk about now, but let me share a few hints now, and the rest may come.

The case is still going on. It's going on so much that it has had its own space on the web – a web page dedicated for the media coverage it has received. The page can be found here.

Other developments shall follow soon, so stay tuned!

More media coverage on my law suit

This was published today in the Denverpost.

The trial of Homaidan Al Turki, a travesty of justice!

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers returned this week end from Saudi Arabia, where he assured the Saudis that Homaidan Al Turki, who was accused and convicted of holding an Indonesian nanny as a captive and sexually assaulting her, had a fair trial.

Having done business in Saudi Arabia, I am repulsed by the injustice and oppression which prevails in that country, and I was ready to convict Al Turki if it was proven that he indeed wronged that woman. The allegations against Mr. Al Turki, unfortunately, are common place amongst our best allies and the business partners of our raining Bush dynasty.

Let us remember, however, that it is Homaidan Al Turki that is on trial here and not Saudi Arabia. In the rules of evidence of our legal system, prior acts of a person, in many cases, cannot be admitted against him to prove a crime, let alone the acts of people with whom he had no acquaintance even if they were his compatriots. As someone who watched the trial and followed this case very closely, I can’t help but wonder if Al Turki really got his day in court, or if he simply was convicted based on fear, xenophobia and the terrible deeds of many of his compatriots.

Sitting in the court room, I couldn’t help but wonder why A manikin dressed in traditional Saudi attire stood there for the entire trial. I was further astonished when 9-11 was mentioned several times, though indirectly, despite its highly prejudicial value. We also learned that two FBI agents and a translator were sent to Indonesia at tax payer’s expense to take pictures of the victim’s family. Most blatant however were the FBI’s aggressive acts of harassment and coercion of members of Al Turki’s community, myself included. Agents would visit people in their home and interview them for hours, twisting events, taking advantage of their authority and capitalizing on the fears of people who came from authoritarian countries. Those who had the sense to ask for an attorney were further intimidated by being told that they shouldn’t need an attorney if they didn’t do anything wrong, the implication being, of course, that having an attorney would make them guilty.

So, are the Saudis justified in questioning the fairness of the trial? Considering the above, as well as the fact that the alleged victim repeatedly denied any sexual assault despite being questioned 11 times by FBI agents and officials from her country’s embassy, only changing her statement a day before she got her immigration papers, one can understand why some people may be skeptical. As if that was not enough, Al Turki’s attorneys found twelve blatant errors during the trial which together stood in the way of Al Turki’s fair judgment – and the manikin was not one of them.

During the sentencing, Al Turki, who had no prior acts of violence and who was out on bail for over a year during his trial, was disallowed the opportunity to wear street clothes, an opportunity given to people convicted of more heinous crimes, and was forced to sit in the court room restrained in handcuffs, despite his attorney’s plea to the judge. In a highly charged political climate, and when our legal system stresses the appearance as well as the actuality of fairness in a trial, why were these things allowed to happen?

Blind guy driving a car

A video I took with a friend of mine in LA in October of 2000 with me driving a car in a parking lot (car park, for those of you who come from the other side of the pond). He was in the car with me at first, but then, fearing for his life, he got out. This was actually a driving lesson -- but aren't they all? We were speaking with a Hebron accent, as those of you who speak Arabic I'm sure noticed by now. Why! Just because we thought it was funny!

Why soccer will never be a popular sport in America

I was watching a recorded episode last week of Dateline NBC, and they had a short commentary about why soccer isn’t so popular in the US.  The guy was saying “well, the game needs a make-over in the US.  Maybe we need to have good guys play against bad guys, and pictures of pretty girls you’d later see in Play Boy magazine”.  This suddenly made a light bulb go off in my head which answered my own similar question about why soccer would never ever become popular in this country.  You see, soccer (properly known as football in the real world), from third division local clubs to national and international championships is all about politics.  It’s all about bad guys against good guys.  It’s all about right against wrong.  It’s all about the underdog facing the big guys.  The only problem is that in order to participate in the game and have your heart in it, you have to know a bit about politics (you know, who does what around the world and why they’re right or why they’re wrong).

I can still clearly remember the world cup in Mexico back in 1986 when Argentina beat England 1-0.  It was Argentina’s get back against their terrible military defeat in the Falklands four years earlier.  Thinking about it now and remembering the world’s reaction at the time, I think it would have been less disgraceful for the English to have lost the war rather than having lost the match.

I listened to this year’s matches on BBC 5 Live, and being mostly surrounded by people who are clueless about the game, I took refuge in the talk shows in England to vent, shout and put in my $19.95’s worth.  Having little faith in their own team (rightfully so), many people were calling in giving their support to the Germans instead who were among the favorites to win.  The discussion sometimes didn’t center around how terrible the home team was, but how terribly strange it is that people were calling in supporting the German team!  How terrible!  Of course no one can forget the 1936 world cup in Berlin and how Hitler used them – no one who knew that is – but you’d remember if you’re English (what! How did this make it into the Detroit Free press!  Must have been someone like me who came here from the old world)!!  

Americans have no sense of the world around them.  You can drive for thousands of miles without crossing a border, and hence people here have little contact with other cultures.  Watching a football game requires a sense of worldliness, a sense that you are part of a bigger world, that you are a subset of a bigger set.  Simply put, Americans do not think that way.  The world is its own big entity, and the United States, to most Americans, is a separate entity all together.

A knock out punchline

I must make a confession here, and that is that I’m always captivated by a quick witted argument, let alone the person who makes it.  Irrespective of whether I agree with the person and/or the argument or not, the way in which an argument is put or a point is made goes a long way towards it’s strength and hence its acceptance.

Once upon a long ago, , before WWF, Football, boxing and other knock out sports came along, people used to debate each other in a sports-like fashion.  If you had a decent command of the language and the slightest bit of interest and knowledge of the topic at hand, you would have your adrenaline levels soaring as you follow the quiet statements which accelerate into passionate exchanges, which then culminate into full knock out punches, some of which could prove to be quite deadly to the debater’s career.

Though the theatrics are sometimes long remembered, much of what’s actually said is quickly forgotten, unless it’s so remarkable that it outlives the emotion which caused it to be said in the first place.  This is exactly the case for this statement made by Mr. George Galloway, the Respect MP for  Bethnal Green and Bow, in the context of the debate in the British Parliament on the Anglo-American extradition treaty (click here to read the full text of Mr. Galloway’s statements, and click here to view the full text of the parliamentary discussion).  

“All we want is a special relationship that does not resemble that between Miss Lewinsky and a former United States President: unequal, disreputable and with the junior partner always on their knees. That is not the kind of special relationship that we want, but as the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) powerfully made clear, it is exactly the kind of special relationship that most people in Britain think that we have with the United States of America, whether that is true or not”.

Now whether you agree with this argument or not, you have to admit it’s brilliant!  When I called and mentioned it to him on his talk show, his response was “I hope it wasn’t too much knuckles down for you”.  Anyway, if you’d like to hear more of that sort of talk, you can tune into Mr. Galloways weekly talk show On Sports Talk in Scotland.  The show is on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Mountain Time.  Just go to the stations’s web site and click on the “listen live” link.  You will need to download the latest version of the Winamp player to be able to listen to the shoutcast stream.

Law suit update

we are very much approaching a major turn in my case against the US government so to speak, and things are beginning to happen.  One thing I’ve known a long time ago is that, unlike George W. Bush, I’m not a terribly patient man, and I don’t handle suspense very well.  The government has 60 days to respond from the date of being served, and in my case, this deadline is August 8, but their usually is an attempt at sorting out the situation before hand, assuming good will exists on both sides.

 I considered all possibilities at the time of filing, including attempts at stalling or a complete lack of response.  You see,  under FRCP 55, if you or I are summoned to court in a civil case and we fail to appear and/or file a timely response, the person suing us can file for a default judgment and get everything they’re suing for.  Section E of the same rule, however, gives an exception when the government is the defendant, as the plaintiff still has to make his/her case just the same, and it’s still the plaintiff’s responsibility (in most cases) to argue their cause and force the response out of the government.  While it certainly puts me at a disadvantage, I can fully understand the merit of such a procedural exception.  I call it “the incompetence exception”, and it’s almost a testament to the wisdom of the courts to have such a provision, otherwise many people would get things they’re not entitled to, not necessarily because they’ve made a good case or they deserve what they’re asking for, but only because of the government’s incompetence, which really doesn’t take a legal scholar to recognize.  Having said this, however, this doesn’t mean that FRCP 55 gives them an absolute shield against action, it just simply means that they are not subject to default judgment.  They still have to abide by all the other rules, and if they don’t they certainly won’t be gathering any favors with the court, not if it is a fair one.  Nevertheless when your own personal stuff is at stake, well, it sort of changes your perspective a bit.

 I therefore put it on my calendar to initiate contact with the US attorney a month before the deadline if I don’t hear from them.  This should have been last Friday, and I fear that the build up to that day has put me under more anxiety than I’d care to admit.  I wasn’t sure what type of reaction I’d get, but more importantly I wasn’t sure about my ability to hold up to what I have set for myself, argue my case in the face of an experienced attorney (I haven’t done this before), and I was a bit too self conscious, wanting to make sure to present the right image of myself.  I didn’t want to intimidate anyone and thus lose any good will, and at the same time I didn’t want to appear week and run the risk of not being taken seriously.  I guess I was perhaps too conscious of the importance of “the first impression” which features so prominently in all human interactions.  My worse judge when I make a stupid mistake is me, and given I have a difficult time fooling my self, I knew I’d be in for a good one if I screwed up.  

I summoned enough courage and rang up the US attorney last week.  I left several messages for the docket clerk to find out the attorney assigned to my case, and surprise surprise, I never got a call back.  I guess this is where it’s good to have an ego, because I was infuriated – perhaps unnecessarily (after all it’s the government we’re talking about), and I felt compelled to act.  Yeah, I know, not the wisest thing exactly (being compelled to act on emotion), but perhaps it was the catalyst I needed to get me out of my paralysis caused anxiety.

I sent a polite email to the public relations person at the US attorney’s office informing him that I’m trying to find the name of the attorney assigned to my case in order to discuss my case with them.  I explained that I was writing to him because his was the only email published on their web site, and apologized in advance if he wasn’t the right person to answer this question, asking him to kindly forward the email to the appropriate person in his office.

I got a call back just a few minutes after I got the electronic delivery receipt for my email (electronic read receipts are known as the cover your ass tactic, and have been a feature of business email for close to ten years).  I finally had an indication of the one who will possibly be facing me in court, and rather than having to cover a whole range of possibilities, I can now focus on a smaller subset.  The best part is, also, that I wasn’t hit with anything I didn’t expect:

• They are certainly not the most efficient (the assistant US attorney called me back because she’s the one who has handled most of the litigation against USCIS, but she hasn’t actually been assigned to my case yet – no one has, but she was pretty sure she would be the one).


• She had no background about my specific case (she only knew my name).


• She was neither friendly nor sympathetic (she was professional though), so it didn’t seem as if there was much good will to squander.


• I was quite surprised when her first words were “It doesn’t work that way, it has to be a Writ Of Mandamus for it to work”!  Wow! I thought!  It looks like the US attorney has got this down to an informal process outside the view of the legal radar!  The process could be summarized as “if you sue us, we’ll help you, but if it gets to trial, then God help you!”.  This way clients have to pay their lawyers (if they can find ones experienced and courageous enough to take on such a case) a bundle (the lowest I was quoted was $3,000 just to file the case, with the strong hope and gamble that it won’t get to trial, with no guarantee of what will happen if it ever got to trial, except perhaps the guarantee that I’ll need to pay a lot more money).  This allows the US attorney and USCIS to work out internal procedures to sort this out between them with the least amount of work and egg on their face (see this memo), giving them still the legal room to maneuver if they see otherwise fit!  That’s pretty clever!   A writ of Mandamus brought under 28 U.S.C. 1361, however, is much more difficult to litigate if it ever gets to trial than a complaint brought under 8 U.S.C. 1447(b) (see the Cornell Law Schoolnotes on rule 21 of title 28 in the appendix titled “Federal Rules Of Appellate procedure”), which discusses in more detail the nature and requirements of a Writ Of Mandamus).  With Mandamus, you have to show harm if you don’t get what you’re asking for, and you have to show that you’ve exhausted all other possible means!  8 U.S.C. 1447(b) on the other hand moves the case to the court (giving it jurisdiction over the case and effectively taking it out of USCIS’s hand), actually allowing the court to adjudicate the application and grant or deny citizenship as it sees fit, and protecting the plaintiff from possible vindictive actions by USCIS (such as denying the case).  In other words, and according to a great deal of case law (sorry, can’t put any links here because you have to pay to get the text of these things, but you can look here for background and case citations), until a ruling is made in the plaintiff’s case, USCIS cannot do anything with the case – they can neither approve it nor deny it.  In fact, looking at the multitude of 1447 (b) cases that were settled in the past couple of years, the district US attorney in many cases asked the plaintiff to drop their law suit first before their N400 application was adjudicated (which, despite what some of them tried to argue, is an acknowledgement of the court’s jurisdiction over the case).  A writ of Mandamus, on the other hand, will best result in an order to the government agency to comply, so you can see the difference!  Besides, the nice thing about 8 U.S.C. 1447(b) is that USCIS is actually in violation of it!  They’re already guilty!


• She (to my advantage) allowed herself to act on her assumption that because I have a foreign name and an accent I’d be timid, ignorant and afraid, so she spent a lot of time and went to great lengths to tell me that the courts give the government a great deal of latitude, especially regarding citizenship applications, due to the “current security situation”.  This is actually not true for cases brought under 8 U.S.C. 1447(b), because most of the cases involving naturalization applications which ended up going to trial (a fraction of the filed cases, since the majority gets settled by the US attorney before they ever go to trial) were decided in favor of the plaintiffs.  It was exhilarating to hear the shock in her voice after I shot back at her with the above, citing in the process a bunch of cases (and the jurisdictions they were tried in).  She made a good comeback when she correctly pointed out that these are not binding in the tenth circuit here in Colorado, but didn’t expect me to point out that it’s therefore a 50-50 shot (and hence worth it for me), since there is actually no precedence to the contrary in the tenth circuit, and the few cases which were decided in favor of the government (I’m only aware of one thus far, namely Danilov) were specifically rejected in most other jurisdictions, with one court having come to the conclusion that “Danilov was decided based upon an inaccurate reading of either § 1447( b) or the regulations that implemented it” (see El-Daour v. Chertoff, 2005 U. S. Dist. LEXIS 18325 ( W. D. Pa. 2005)).


• She tried the line “It’s not USCIS’s fault, since the FBI has to do their background check and they don’t tell anyone how they work”, I politely informed her that in this case the FBI is a defendant, and hence it’s her responsibility to find out how and why, since she’s their attorney too!


• She tried to portray me as someone who’s trying to “jump the queue”, since “there are people who have been waiting since 2001 in a limbo (though she didn’t use this word) quite similar to mine, and therefore a year and a half is not a whole lot of time and that I just have to wait for my turn in the queue”, I pointed out to her that the law is pretty clear about 120 days, and that 121 days is breaking the law, and since 99% of applications (according to DHS published statistics and claims) don’t even go through this, her claim that in fact there is a queue to begin with (at least one sanctioned by DHS, FBI,  USCIS internal procedures or published federal statutes) has little (if any) legal basis!

Though she promised to check with CIS and DHS on the status of my application, she did conclude by saying “you’re entitled to a hearing I guess”, which, to me, means that we’ll be going to trial.  In other words, the show has just begun!

It’s a bit of a relief for me to know that despite the enormous stress this has brought to my life and the great deal of uncertainty and anxiety this has put me under, I did do OK when the time for action came.  I’ll be OK with the anxiety if the good performance continues, at least until this is over.

On a different track, I received yet another finger print notice from USCIS, this time dated July 3.  Apart from the date, it looked identical to the previous one.  I called the USCIS customer service center, and after being put on hold for close to a half an hour, I spoke to a very nice young lad, who told me he had no idea what’s going on and who put me through to an immigration officer.  The officer I spoke to was no more helpful, as she indicated that her computer was down and hence couldn’t check anything for me, but that I should go anyway, lest my application be considered “abandoned”.  She indicated that they have had a computer glitch which caused finger print notices to unnecessarily go out , and I had no reason to doubt what she said, until, that is, the gentleman at the service center pointed out to me that the letter was hand written.  I hate it when people blame computers for mistakes.  I am a computer professional, and the first thing I learned about computers was “garbage in, garbage out”.  In other words, computers are as good as those who use them.

I nevertheless went to the service center to get my finger prints taken on the eleventh of July, but they refused to take my finger prints because “there was nothing wrong with the ones taken on June 18" according to them.  They stamped my notice and gave it back to me.  I’ll be sending a copy of the stamped notice to USCIS via express mail with a letter asking for an explanation.  I’ve also made an InfoPass appointment to have a chat with USCIS to try to sort out the multiple finger print notices issue on the 24th of July, so we’ll see.

Moving forward, full of hope and head up high.    

Law suit update

I have received today a notice from USCIS asking me to appear ASAP for finger printing in order to continue to process my citizenship application.  This is a good sign, as it means that my file has been pulled out of the pile and is now once again in the queue, if not at the head of it.

According to law enforcement procedures as I understand them, finger prints expire 18 months after they are initially taken, and if that much time has elapsed without the application being adjudicated, they would have to be retaken.  This actually happened to me with my permanent residence application.

The above is the most optimistic scenario, and there are other less optimistic ones, but as they say, if you think of good things they will eventually come your way.

Moving forward, full of hope and head up high.

Taking on the big guys

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO

Civil Action No.          
     1:06-CV-01023     


          , Plaintiff,
Zuhair     T.     Mahd
v.          
Department Of Homeland Security Director     CHERTOFF, MICHAEL,     ,
          
US Citizenship And Immigration Services Director     GONZALEZ, EMILIO T.     ,

Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) Director     MUELLER, ROBERT S.     ,
          
USCIS Denver District Office director       ORTIZ, MARIO       ,
          
          ,
          
          ,
          
          , Defendant(s).

(List each named defendant on a separate line.)



COMPLAINT

Petition for a hearing on naturalization under 8 U.S.C. §1447(b).‎

Yes my dear reader, the above is the cover sheet for my law suit filed in the tenth circuit federal district court in Colorado on May 30, 2006 against the United States Of America.  Specifically, I am suing the United States Department Of Homeland Security (DHS), The United States Citizenship And Immigration Service (USCIS), and the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI).  The story even got local TV coverage, where there is an article on the web site of the TV station as well as a video of the actual TV story.

Reading the web article and watching the news story above will give you an idea as to why I’m filing my grievance, but to summarize, I have applied for my US citizenship after fulfilling all the necessary requirements, was interviewed and passed all necessary tests including a criminal background check, but was told that my application couldn’t be approved because of further security checks.  This was in December of 2004, almost a year and a half ago.

According to section 8 U.S.C. 1447(b) of the United States Code, USCIS has to make a ruling on an application no later than 120 days from the date of the interview.  Since more than 120 days have passed since my interview was conducted, USCIS is in breach of Federal law, the law which governs the whole United States and which applies equally to individuals as well as the government.

Looking at the list of defendants above, I must admit I was scared at first.  Here I am, a blind foreign immigrant, someone who grew up in a poor country and slept on the floor with seven other brothers and sisters, filing a case and summoning the directors of DHS, USCIS and the FBI to court, to appear before a judge through their attorney (the US Attorney General, acting through the US District Attorney in Colorado) to address my grievance!  I couldn’t believe myself as I was writing the summons, but it is really true, I am doing that.  I’m not the first to have done that either – many immigrants, and in fact many people through out the history of this country have done that, are doing that right now, and will hopefully continue to do that!

It is not unreasonable to say that the foreign policy and the actions of many western countries around the world over the past couple of hundred years gave democracy a bad name.  Any Iraqi will tell you what they think of Democracy right now, after they finish burying a relative that is, and so will any Palestinian, and almost anyone who comes from Africa.  To them, Democracy has been a slogan advanced by an occupying power to justify its own presence in their lives in order to take away their natural resources or to achieve some kind of a strategic goal.

It is a shame that these people never get to experience the true meaning of Democracy and the rule of law.  The fact of the matter is, no matter how misguided and unjust the foreign policy of this country is, it is still a country subject to the rule of law.  Even though politicians and lawyers are getting ever so smart at figuring out loopholes in the law, they are still nevertheless subject to it, and if they are caught breaking it, they are, in most cases, held accountable.

Naturally, I have never filed a law suit against anyone before, let alone the United States, so my experience with court procedures is quite limited.  There are lots of complicated procedures to follow, and things have to be done according to a certain set of processes.  Fortunately, everything is on the Internet – the laws, the procedures, the rules, the forms and everything you would ever need!  As if that wasn’t enough, as I was filing my case, I found the court clerks to be extremely friendly and more than helpful.  They had no trouble accommodating my special requirements by granting me the ability to file electronically, they patiently and promptly answered (and continue to answer) all my questions, and have made it clear to me that they will do all they can to give me equal access to the justice system.  They have made it clear, as they should (in order to maintain the integrity of the legal system), that they will not offer me any legal assistance, for it is my responsibility to argue my case, but in so far as the processes and procedures are concerned, I have yet to find any other outfit to be as accommodating and helpful.  When I mentioned that to a friend of mine, his question was “So, the government is so helpful to you even though you are suing them”?  My answer to him, which is a matter of fact in a democracy is that the judicial branch of the government is totally separate from the executive branch.  In fact, it is the job of the judicial branch to keep the executive branch in check by overseeing their enforcement of the laws passed by the legislative branch.  If you never lived in a democracy however, government is simply government, and everyone is in cahoots with one another!

I do not know what the outcome of this law suit will be, but I am optimistic that I will at least be given a chance to argue my case in front of a neutral judge, who, I am hoping, will weigh the evidence, and who will have no problem granting me the relief I’m asking for if my argument is indeed legally sound.  Quite honestly, what more can I ask for?

I’ll certainly keep this blog up to date (as much as I can) about what’s happening.  As it stands right now, I am in the process of serving the summons to the defendants ordering them to appear in court within 60 days of service of the summons upon them.  United States law requires anyone suing (usually called the plaintiff) to notify those he/she is suing (usually called the defendant) that they are being sued by serving them with a summons.  The summons is sent to the defendant as well as their attorney, which in the case of a United States government agency is the U.S Attorney General (equivalent to the minister of justice in many countries) and the US district attorney.  Furthermore, the plaintiff has to prove to the judge that he/she has actually notified the defendants in a way which cannot be disputed.  I have therefore sent the summons to everyone via certified mail with a return receipt requested, and upon confirming their receipt of my summons, each defendant has 60 days to respond.

Since, unless sealed, all court records in the United States are public record, here is the text of my complaint against the United States government with all identifying information and exhibits (other than my name) removed.  If you live in the United States, you can look at the entire case through PACER, the federal court record system.

COME NOW Zuhair T. Mahd, Plaintiff in the above-styled and numbered cause, and for cause of action would show unto the Court the following:

1. This action is brought for a hearing to decide Plaintiff's naturalization application due to Defendants' failure to adjudicate the application within 120 days after the first examination in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") § 336(b) and 8 U.S.C. §1447(b).

2. Plaintiff Zuhair T. Mahd became a lawful permanent resident of the United States on November 10, 1999. Plaintiff filed the N-400 application by the name of Zuhair T.A Mahmoud at the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) on September 7, 2004 after having met the requirements in the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") § 334(a), § 316(a) and 8 U.S.C. §1445(a) and § 1427(a).  Application was received by the NSC on September 11, 2004.  Plaintiff was interviewed for his naturalization application and passed the required tests on Friday, December 10, 2004. Defendants have failed to make a decision on the application within 120 days after the examination.

3.     Defendant Michael Chertoff is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),and this action is brought against him in his official capacity.  He is generally charged with enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and is further authorized to delegate such powers and authority to subordinate employees of the DES. 8 U.S.C. §1103(a); 8 C.F.R. § 2.1.

4.     Defendant Emilio T. Gonzalez is the Acting Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), an agency within the DHS to whom the Secretary's authority has in part been delegated and is subject to the Secretary's supervision. Defendant Director is generally charged with the overall administration of benefits and immigration services. 8 C.F.R. 12 § 100.2(a)

5.     Defendant Mario Ortiz, Denver District Director, is an official of the USCIS generally charged with supervisory authority over all operations of the USCIS within his District with certain specific exceptions not relevant here. 8 C.F.R. §100.2(d)(2)(ii). As will be shown, Defendant Director is the official with whom Plaintiff's naturalization application remains pending.

6.     Defendant Robert S. Mueller, III, is Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the law enforcement agency that conducts security clearances for other U.S. government agencies, such as the Department of State. As will be shown, Defendant has failed to complete the security clearances on Plaintiff's cases.

JURISDICTION
7.     Jurisdiction in this case is proper venue under the INA § 336(b) and 8 U.S.C. 1447(b). Relief is therefore requested pursuant to said statutes.

8.     Venue is proper in this court, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. §1447(b), in that Plaintiff may request a hearing on the matter in the District where Plaintiff resides.

CAUSE OF ACTION
9.     Plaintiff is a lawful permanent resident (XXXXXXXXX) of the United States. Plaintiff filed a N-400, Application for Naturalization with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and was interviewed by officer X of USCIS Denver sub-office on December 10, 2004. (Exhibit 1).

10.     Based on the letter dated on December 10, 2004 from the USCIS Denver office, Plaintiff was informed that his Application for Naturalization is still pending for the completion of all necessary background checks. (Exhibit 2)

11. Plaintiff’s application for naturalization has now remained unadjudicated for more than a year and a half from the date of interview, despite the fact that Defendants have sufficient information to determine Plaintiffs eligibility pursuant to applicable requirements.

12.     On April 20, 2006, plaintiff contacted USCIS through a personal appointment with an USCIS officer (officer X) who informed him that the results of his criminal background check cleared on October 5, 2004, five days after he was finger printed at the USCIS local support center in Denver, but that his name check was still pending.  He was further told that his file was mistakenly shipped to the national records center in Missouri.  The officer could not offer an explanation and promised to communicate with plaintiff in writing.  A communication from officer X or anyone at USCIS has yet to be received.

13.     As seen in exhibit 1, plaintiff was examined under Sec. 335(b) and 335.2 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and under 8 U.S.C. 1446(b), and was deemed to have passed the examination.  Plaintiff passed the civics exam (exhibit 3), and a waver of the English language reading and writing tests was deemed by USCIS as appropriate after a request for accommodations under the ADA was sent to USCIS due to plaintiff’s blindness (exhibit 4).

14.     Defendants, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1446, have failed to make a determination on Plaintiffs naturalization application within the 120-day period after the date of examination.

15.     WHEREFORE, in view of the arguments and authority noted herein, Plaintiff respectfully prays that the Defendants be cited to appear herein and that, upon due consideration, the Court enter an order adjudicating the naturalization application. In the alternative, the Court may remand requiring Defendants to immediately adjudicate Plaintiffs naturalization application.

              

"The house still stands", a short story I wrote

The story below was inspired by my visit to the memorial of Al-amerieh shelter in Baghdad in late 2000.  This is one of a precious few attempts of mine at fiction writing, and it uses the short story format, a genre I’ve always been fond of.

In 1991, the US air force bombed the Al-amerieh shelter, which was housing scores of civilians, under the disguise that it housed military targets, probably the same ones they went looking for and never found in 2003.  I watched the carnage on TV in 1991, and was vividly reminded of it almost ten years later.

I wrote the story in 2002 but never published it.  This is the first time I’ve ever shared it with the world.  The story is entitled “THE HOUSE STILL STANDS”.


--------------------------------------------
THE HOUSE STILL STANDS:

It was a dark and gloomy night, a night I will never forget.  Never in my life have I seen so many contradictions come together to put me where I am today.  The weather was very beautiful, a cold and gentle breeze blowing through the city, trying to clear with it the waves and waves of smoke which covered it, hoping desperately to expose the beautiful blue sky above.  The silence which loomed over the city was ear piercing, only to be interrupted by the sounds of explosions so far away.  The darkness was blinding, so much so that flickers of what resembled lightening could be seen from parts of the city so distant I never knew even existed.  There was no electricity, since all generators in the city were destroyed by the war which has been going on for well over two weeks now.

I lay on my bed, restless as I have been every night, with my parents and siblings scattered around me on their half broken beds and little matrices, so peaceful in their sleep, so wrapped up in their innocence.  My youngest brother, Ahmed, is so happy that school is closed, so he does not have to wake up early, put up with his teachers, and most importantly, not have to worry about my mother nagging him to do his homework.  My older sister, who was about to be married to the man whom my father chose for her, was very happy that the wedding was called off because of the war; she did not want that man anyway.  She hated him, she could not stand to see him, but my father would not hear of it.  “He is the right man for you Salma”, he always used to say, “He has money, he has connections, he will get you out of this misery you live in” he used to tell her.  Well, this is nothing to worry about anymore.  The war is here, and strangely enough, she is more comfortable with the war than she would have been with that man.  My parents, now old and frail, do nothing all day, as there is nothing to do anyway.  My mother spends her day praying for us and for our welfare, and my father sits in the corner smoking his cigarettes, cursing his luck every now and then, angry because he can no longer provide us with the good living we grew up with.  I swear that I have sometimes seen him cry, but I know he would not admit it.  “Men do not cry, son”, he always used to tell me.  “If you see a man crying, know that it would be easier for him to die than to do that.  Always have compassion for him in your heart son, and feel sorry for him”.  Now that he is old and crippled, he can do nothing but sit in the corner all day, remembering what once was, hoping that one day it will return, knowing full well that it will never happen.

Growing up, I always hated my father.  He was always tough with us, and was especially tough with my mother.  I was especially baffled by the contradictions in that man’s personality.  Whenever we wanted something, he would do his best to bring it to us.  I remember full well how we all used to get new clothes during the Eed, and how he would be the only one without new clothes because we did not have enough money.  When my mom would urge him to get something for himself, he would always say “my Eed is to see my kids happy”.  He was, on the other hand, very difficult to get close to.  He never really played with us.  We always looked at him from a distance, even when we were sitting next to him.  None of us would dare to anger him, lest his wrath fall upon us, and he really had no mercy.  That all changed when I took his place.  When my father became ill and lost his legs a few years ago, I had to leave school to work and provide for the family.  Having no degree and very little experience, I was never paid much, just enough to buy bread and butter for my parents and siblings to eat at the end of the day.  I knew then, and I know now what he used to go through.  I love this man now more than I love anyone else.  With his compassion, he taught me what giving meant.  Through his toughness, he taught me how to deal with the monstrous and merciless world out there.

I continued to shift in my bed, with my mind flitting from thought to thought, tossing and turning, watching the innocence on Ahmed’s little face on one corner, and the apprehension on my mother’s face, a feature which has become part of her appearance, on the other.  I can safely say that if it was not for her faith, my mother would have killed herself a long time ago.  She instead gave prays to her creator constantly, trusted in him, and asked him to keep an eye on her children everyday.

Ever since the war started, I have been worried about my family and about their safety.  The Americans tell us that they have smart weapons, weapons which hit their targets with pin point accuracy.  They tell us that they are after our leaders and not after us.  They tell us that they have no qualms or quarrels with us, that it is only our leaders that they have the quarrel with.  They are liars, yes they are liars.  Our neighbors, Dar Abu Sally, had nothing to do with the leadership.  They hated Saddam Husein and his regime.  Their father and their oldest son were both killed by Saddam and his cronies, and they are as desperate as ever, and what do the Americans do to them?  They destroy their house and kill the rest of them.  I remember how I used to play with their little daughter Sally when we were little kids.  We used to play mom and dad, and we even talked about how we were going to get married when we grow older.  Sally is now no more, she is dead; and the house which used to stand wall to wall next to our house is gone, yes it is gone.  It went away with Sally, and with our hopes and dreams, the hopes and dreams witch never went beyond our little innocence.  And then there is the house of Dar Abu Saleh next door to us on the other side.  Saleh, the oldest kid, left the country to study abroad, but the party agents shot him in his residence in London, only because someone told them that he said something bad about the president.  Dar Abu Saleh hated Saddam Husein, but the Americans bombed their house and killed them all.  Yes, they killed them all with their smart bombs and pin point accurate missiles.  I am worried to death that they will kill us all, I know they are going to do it, I know they are, and therefore we must go to Al-amerieh, where all the rest of our neighbors went.  Al-amerieh is the safest shelter in Baghdad.  It is built underground, very heavily fortified, and there is only one small entrance which leads into it.  This shelter can withstand anything, literally anything.  We must go, we have to go, but my mother would not hear of it.  “I don’t want to leave this house, son.  This is where I had you, this is where I raised you and your siblings, and this is where I will die”.  But the thought of my mother and father and the rest of my family dying was one I did not want to entertain.  I cannot just let them stay here, the Americans will bomb us, I have no doubt.  I talked to my father, and I got nowhere.  Since he became ill, he made no effort to make any decisions in our house, it all rested on my shoulders.  My sister could care less, all she can think about is that she is not going to marry that man and that is it.  I don’t know what to do.

The following morning, my mother woke me up to ask me to go out and buy some tea so that she can pour it on the bread to soften it and make a breakfast for us.  We have been eating this bread for two days now, and that is all that we had.  It has become dry, and my mom started cutting it into pieces and putting into a plate, pouring some tea over it so that we can eat it with a spoon.  “I don’t want to”, I said.  “What”, she asked?  “Yes mom, I am not going to.  That is it.  We are out of food, we have no money left, we must go to Al-amerieh”, I said passionately.  “I don’t want you to get killed, and I am going to do all I can to save you, and because of that, you must go to Al-amerieh today.  They have food there, and we will all be safe”.  I was not telling the truth; after all, I did have some dinars in my pocket, probably enough to buy us some tea, but I had to pressure my mother into going to Al-amerieh, and this seemed like a good way to do it.

My mother turned her face away from me, and raised her hands up and prayed, as she always did.  “alright son”, she said.  “If that is what we have to do, that is what we have to do”.  She sat in the corner next to my father and started crying.  My father did not look.  He continued to face the wall in front of him, clutching tightly with his lips on the last cigarette he had.  I could not stand to see this.  I wanted to back off and go out and buy the tea for my mother and keep her here for just another day and make her happy, but making her safe was more important to me.  I held my tears and looked the other way and waited.

Ten minutes later, my mother awoke my brother and sister, and asked them to help her pack.  “We are going to Al-amerieh today” she said to them.  “it will be safer there, after all, you have seen what happened to Dar Abu Sally and Dar Abu Saleh.  We must go to the shelter so that we may stay alive if this house gets bombed”.

My brother Ahmed seemed very excited at the prospect of leaving the house.  He is a hyper kid, and staying in the house without going outside for days was not something he was particularly happy about, even if it saved him from going to school.  Salma could care less, she just followed where everyone else went.

We talked for a while about what to take and what to leave, and I told them that, beyond the basics, everyone was allowed to bring with them only one item of sentimental value.  My sister protested, but I had to make it clear to her that if she wanted to bring any extra items with her, that she would have to carry them herself.  After thinking about it for a while, she reluctantly agreed to bring only one item, and took out her dress which my Mom made her after she graduated from high school.  Ahmed brought with him his fake gun, and my father elected to take his pipe with him.  When we were about to leave, I noticed my mother’s tears again.  “Mom, you know it is for hour safety that we are doing this, don’t you?” I said with a firm and somewhat angry voice.  “Yes son” she said, “I know.  I just hate to leave this house behind, and this rug which my grand mother made me a long time ago.  This rug means so much to me, but I realize that we cannot take it with us, it is just simply too heavy”.  I cringed inside and I felt like my heart has just missed a beat.  I know how valuable this rug is, and I know how much it means to my mother.  I know, however, that we will not be able to take it with us, because the truck taking us to Al-amerieh will refuse to take it.  My mother is very sentimental, and losing this rug will make her sad – I have no doubt.  While wondering what to do, a thought suddenly came into my mind.  After I drop my family at the shelter, I will go back and pick the rug and surprise my mother.  The shelter is only five miles away from our house, so I can probably ride the truck back to the house, pick up the rug, and walk back with it to the shelter and surprise her with it.  She would be so happy!

The truck, which made a habit of picking up people who wanted to go to the shelter everyday, started its round.  The driver was surprised to see us packed and ready to board since he actually approached us several times before offering to take us to the shelter.  “So, you finally decided to go?” he said with a cheerful voice.  “Yes, it will be safer for us there, don’t you think?” I said.  “Yes, absolutely.  I was hoping you would come to that conclusion soon”.

We loaded our belongings and wrote along with some other strangers we did not know.  The drive to the shelter lasted only seven minutes, and we quickly unloaded and brought our stuff inside.  My father pointed out a corner for me and asked me to put him there; I reluctantly obliged.

The shelter was a very big place packed with people.  Built for maximum protection, it was fully underground, and thus had no natural light in it.  There were people from every age and place, children, men and women, young and old, sick and healthy, far and near.  Sanitation left a lot to be desired, since taking a bath was a luxury in that place.  As I helped my family settle there, I felt a wave of comfort and ease come over me.  “now they are safe.” I thought to myself.  “I don’t have to worry about them any more”.

My mother looked for and had no trouble finding some of our neighbors, who were quite surprised to see her there.  “We thought we’d never see you here,” said Umm Ali, the neighbor from across the street, “what changed your mind”?  “My kids you know,” my mother sighed.  “It is safer for them here”.  “Well, we told you so,” said Umm Alaa, “but you would not hear of it”.  “Well, one must come to one’s senses eventually,” my mom said with tears in her eyes.

Ahmed had no trouble finding company either.  He blended in with kids his age, and ran around doing what little kids do best, play like nothing is happening.

I had to find a good excuse to get out of the shelter.  I figured if I could finish my mission before dark, I will be safe from the bombing.  The Americans used to like to drop their fire after dark, and it usually went on well into the early morning hours.  Not only did I have to come up with an excuse to satisfy my mother, I also had to get the guards to let me out.  The best thing to do was to volunteer to bring food from outside.  Although they pay for the food, someone has to go out and get it, and they always asked young men to go out and volunteer to bring in the food.  They will allow me to go out, as long as I go out with an authorized group, and as long as we all come back before dark.  I figured I’d go with them, get off at the closest place to our house, get the rug, and, if necessary, walk back to the shelter.  They were not very strict about people coming in, they just did not want us to go out.

The truck was just about to pull out when I caught it.  I jumped in and sat in the front seat, as it was the only one available.  “Well, we’re going to the super market on Felisteen street.  You will have only ten minutes to pick up what you are supposed to pick up, and then you must be back.  If you are not back, we will leave without you.” The driver yelled in a firm voice.  “Ten minutes?” I thought to myself.  “I guess I won’t be going back with them”.  Felisteen street was about a mile away from our house, and there was no way I could walk there and back in ten minutes.  “Well, it will have to be walking back all the way,” I thought.

It was early afternoon when I got to the house.  The rug was laying there near the corner, wrapped as if it was ready to go, just waiting for me.  As I picked up the rug and started out, I heard the sound of planes, and a very large explosion.  “Well, it looks like the Americans are starting early.” I thought to myself.  “I have nothing to worry about, since my family is now safe.  I’ll just stay here if necessary, and will start out as soon as possible”.

The bombing continued well into the evening , and I became uncertain whether it would be wise for me to walk back to the shelter.  I knew that my mother would be a little bit worried, but since they were safe, I did not think too much about it, and she may very well be talking to the neighbors and not notice my absence anyway.  There were so many people crammed in that shelter that it was not unusual for people to be lost there.

I lay on my bed waiting for things to calm down.  The sound of aero planes and bombs was so close that I was beginning to worry that it may hit our house.  I was very happy that my family was not here.  “As long as they are safe,” I thought, “I’ll be OK”.

A couple of hours passed and the bombing ceased.  I decided to turn on the radio which my father elected to leave behind, and listen to the news.  “The American aggressors have committed a crime of the greatest magnitude,” the announcer said with a loud and monotone voice.  “Tonight, and around midnight, the aggressors threw a laser guided missiles straight into the entrance of the Al-amerieh shelter, killing everyone inside”.

I felt the world around me stop.  I looked around in shock and disbelief, hoping that I was dreaming.  I looked for my mother, for my father, for Salma and for Ahmed, but they were not there.  They were at Al-amerieh.  They are gone, all gone, but our house, the house which had all our memories in it, still stands.

Reflections on being an immigrent

“ملّيت أنا ملّيت من الغربة, وتعبت من الترحال ... وقاسيت حياة صعبة وقضيت ليالي طوال”.

These are words from a song called “mallait” sung by Warda Aldjazairia.  I’ve been looking for this song since 1992 when I first heard it on an Arabic radio station on Shortwave shortly after I migrated to the United States.  I haven’t heard it ever since, and I managed to find it yesterday by pure coincidence.

It was a beautiful song when I first heard it, but now it’s much more than that – it’s a reflection of so many of my sentiments and those of numerous others in my shoes.  I remember playing it early in the morning yesterday and nearly crying.  It was so easy to listen to in 1992 back when life was simple and when my knowledge of the world around me was quite limited.  Now I can only marvel about the complexity of the song and its lyrics.  The music, however, is still as beautiful now as it was then – perhaps even more.  Click here to download and listen to the song.

“I’m so fed up of being away from home, and I’m so weary of my numerous travels.  I have lived a tough life, and suffered so many sleepless nights”.

The lines above struck a chord with me, but I’d like to believe that with wisdom, faith, endurance and toughness I’ve been able to get over them.  It’s the next few lines that hit me like a ton of bricks.  They have always been true, still are, and I have a feeling that they’ll always be:

“من غير حبايبنا, أيه يسوى تغريبنا, وأن كان معانا المال ... دحنا في غربتنا, لو لحظة تعبتنا, تبان همومنا جبال".

Translated, they read:  “What’s being away from our loved ones worth, even if we have so much money, for if one little setback faces us, it always seems like mountains”.

Whether you like it or not, being extracted from your home, your childhood, your family and your loved ones places a huge burden upon your shoulders.  You will always carry the burden, and though your body might get used to it, you only need to add a straw to be reminded of its heavy weight.

The song goes on to say:

"الحلم خدنا معاه, وسافرنا ورا دنياه, وصحينا ولقيناه, حلم وسراب وخيال".

Translated: “the dream seduced us and took us with it, and we traveled and ran after it, and when we woke up, we realized it was an illusion, a mirage, a mere fantasy”.

I wondered about that for a long time.  When I came to America, I had a lot of dreams.  I dreamed of glory, money, status, happiness, and a life full of excitement.  While I’m proud of all that I’ve achieved, I often wonder if it’s worth the price I’m paying?  The fact of the matter is, I miss my family, I miss our neighbors, I miss my childhood friends, and I want to be with them so desperately.  The passion of such longing lights an ever lasting fire in my heart, and I have yet to learn how to extinguish it.

Though we are not from the same country, the singer and I come from the same part of the world and share a similar culture.  Despite the economic, political or social problems which plague this part of the world, the concept of community and roots is very strong.  Your roots are your family, your parents, your neighbors who cared for you just as your parents did, and your childhood which bonded you to them and to so many others.  Our countries were small, and you therefore scarcely moved, thus giving you the opportunity to experience the true meaning of human bonding.  When you’re extracted all of a sudden, whether fleeing a hated condition or merely chasing a dream, you experience the pain of extraction first hand.  You experience an almost lethal type of loneliness, and you experience certain feelings hardly familiar to the average human being.  You make friends, but you wonder, as our singer does in the next few lines:

“مالناش هنا أحباب, ... مين يعشق الأغراب, ... ألا ألِّ له أسباب, مهما حلف أو قال".

Translated: “we have no one to love us here, for no one loves a stranger, except those who have their own reasons, no matter what they say and by whom they swear”.

This brought tears to my eyes.  I don’t know if it is true, but I’m terrified it may be!  I’d like to think that my relationships with people which I have developed over the years have been based on a mutual feeling of our common humanity and thus on love and respect for one another, but is that really true?  I’ve developed strong relationships with people for the sake of doing business, so business was the common interest.  Some of these relationships outlived the purpose for which they were formed.  Some bonds were formed because of attraction to a member of the opposite sex, and these are usually over when the attraction is over, assuming a life long bond wasn’t created, or one that was created later became broken.  

I can’t help but ask myself, What is it then, and how does it work!  Are you, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, are you just a stranger, a drifter, one who doesn’t belong?  Can relationships formed with people who do not know the meaning of bonding as you do sustain difficult times?  Isn’t this just part of growing up, regardless whether you left your homeland or not?

Perhaps the question is not so simple, especially when you start to look at relationships amongst people of the host culture in the context of the culture itself.  You cannot judge your relationships in that culture with your own standards, you have to judge it with theirs.  If that’s how they treat each other, and if they’re not treating you any differently, then they’re not treating you as a stranger!  While this enables me to put the relationship in context, and while it gives me great comfort, since it affirms my feeling of taking part in fair and equitable relationships where everyone is doing their best as they understand it to be, it still nevertheless doesn’t dispel my feelings of estrangement.  I cannot help but feel that these are cold and unrewarding relationships.  This is how it feels to me, but ironically enough, this is not what it is.  The problem is that I’m trying to play the game with my own rules, and when I fail to win because I couldn’t quite understand the new rules, I feel sad and broken especially since I was a master of the game when I played it with the rules I knew.

The last segment of the song says:

"آن الأوان يا زمان, نرجع على الأوطان, ناخدها بالأحضان, دَالبعد عنها ضناء".

Translated: “Now the time has come to go back to the homeland, hug it and take it in our arms, for being away from it is like an unquenched thirst”.

Those lines used to invoke strong emotions when I first heard the song 14 years ago, but now they bring tears.  The painful conclusion I had to drive into the inner dungeons of my conscience was that the homeland disappears off the map the minute you leave it.  I know that this is very difficult to understand to those who have never left their homeland or to those who left but never attempted to return, but I assure you it is the truth, the painful truth and nothing but the truth.

The fact is that the world never ever stops, no matter where we are and what we do.  While wrapped up in our own affairs, we forget that the world doesn’t stop for others just the same.  Your family, childhood friends, the neighbors, the people you bonded with all went their own way.  The neighbors you knew moved away, grew old or died.  The little ones you left crawling grew to become adults, and the adults you left became old.  Each and everyone gained a different understanding of life through their own, often dissimilar, experiences, and without sufficient communication as there is when distances are not so vast, you grow apart without even being conscious of it.

When you leave, you leave with a certain image of the homeland which stays frozen in your mind through out the years of your absence.  As you start to experience the pain of being away, this image becomes idealized, such that you only retain the wonderful things you used to love, and forget the things which drove you away.  Similarly, those whom you leave remember you the way you were when you left, and your image is frozen in their minds just the same.  When you go back, you’re looking forward to finding the home you’ve been missing throughout your years of absence.  When your people see you, they remember the person who left them so many years ago.  The disappointment is sometimes mutual when you do not find the homeland you left, and when those who were waiting for you see a different person than the one they were desperately missing.  Compounded by the overwhelming realization that home is not the ideal place you dreamed it up to be, the experience of going back may prove to be quite difficult.

For anyone who leaves home for an extended amount of time, it is difficult to define home anymore.  For an immigrant, it is even more difficult, since they have to struggle to reach that definition.  Whether people end up staying in their newly adopted country as I’ve done and making it home, or whether they go back as I tried to do, the strong emotions and sentiments expressed in this song will always be there, keeping a supply of tears just below the surface, waiting to burst whenever an event, a word, a poem or a song strikes a chord and touches that sensitive nerve which you often forgot existed.

Smile! a beautiful poem!

When was the last time a verse of poetry shook your very existence and caused your heart to miss a beat?  For me, it was just a few weeks ago at the end of a wonderful evening which I spent with some friends entertaining a guest (who later became a friend) from out of town.  After a wonderful dinner, some Hookah and lots of hilariously funny jokes, I got in the car with my coterie to be dropped off home.  As my friend was getting ready to start the engine, I heard him mutter a poem under his breath which I instantly recognized.  I studied it whilst in 5th grade, and don’t believe I heard it recited ever since.  The poem is simply called “smile”, and it was written by the migrant Lebanese poet Iliya Abu Madi.  The words were so beautiful I nearly cried, and found myself struggling to pull the verses from the deepest bottoms of my memory.  After I got home, I kept remembering the verses over and over again, and a few days later, I decided to search for it on the Internet.  Thanks to Google, I was able to find it, and when I read the whole poem, I came to see the beauty, the optimism and the majesty of it.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, a wave of migration took place from the Arab World to the United States and other countries in North, Central and South America.  This wave included a number of writers and poets who were so influential that they had a significant impact on Arabic literature, such that they later became masters of their own genre, the Genre known as “Adab Almahjar”, or the literature of the expatriates.  This genre, unlike its traditional counterparts, was simple but powerful, and incorporated elements of Western literature, dressing it in beautiful Arabic attire.  It spoke of love and longing, for the homeland, for the beautiful woman, the queen of the heart, for the loved ones far away and for happiness.  Such poets and writers included such renowned names as  Gibran Khalil Gibran, and of course the wonderful Iliya Abu Madi.

But back to the poem.  It takes place in the form of a dialogue between two friends, a pessimist and an optimist.  The pessimist was talking about all sorts of terrible things around him, things which are part and parcel of the life of an immigrant from the Middle East at that time, and the optimist was trying to convince him to smile!

Here is a vocal recitation of the poem in its native Arabic given by yours truly.  My apologies for those of you who speak Arabic for the mistakes I’m sure I made, and to those of you who do not, for failing to convey the full beauty of this poem in my attempt to translate it below.  Nevertheless, the poem, translated, goes like this:

He said “the sky is gloomy and full of sadness”,
I said “so smile, isn’t the sadness in the sky enough”?

He said “the days of youth are long gone”,
I said “So smile, do you think your sorrow will bring back those long gone days”?

He said “and she who brought heaven into my life with her love, has turned it with her love into a raging hell-fire.

She betrayed our vows after I gave her my heart, so how can I even bear to smile”!

I said “so smile and  sing, for if you had married her, you would have spent your whole life in pain and sorrow”.

He said “and business now a days is in such a struggle, just like the desert traveler who is almost being slain by thirst.

Or like a beautiful sick girl who is in need of so much blood, and yet each time she breathes she  exhales blood”.

I said “smile, for you’re not the cause of its sickness and its recovery, but if you smile, just maybe.

For its not your fault – it’s someone else’s, but yet you live in so much anxiety as if you are the guilty one”.

He said “and my adversaries’ voices have become so loud around me, how can I be please with my adversaries so close here in my safe refuge?”

I said “smile, for they wouldn’t have come after you for what you said if you weren’t higher and greater than they are.”

He said “and the signs of the holidays are slowly exposing themselves to me, with new clothes, with toys!

And I, as you know, have binding commitments of gifts for my loved ones, but my palm possesses not a Dirham (Dollar).”

I said “smile and think of how lucky you are to be alive, and how lucky you are to have those loved ones”.

He said “and the long nights have fed me so much bitterness,”
I said “smile, even if you had to scoff so much bitterness.

For if someone sees you hymning, they may put aside their sadness and chant with you.

I don’t see you earning a dirham (Dollar) with your misery, neither do I see you losing riches with a smile.

Oh my friend, there is no harm if your lips crack and your face chuckles.

So smile, for the meteor and the night both smile even when they have to face each other – and that’s why we love the sight of the stars!”

He said “oh, but cheerfulness can never bring happiness to someone who comes to this world and goes unwillingly.”

I said “oh but smile, as long as there is but a foot between you and death, smile, How come I don’t see you smiling yet!”