#is speaking only in Arabic (he was working the reception when I came up because im assuming he can’t find a receptionist who wants to work

[leefi]

this guy im going to for laser hair removal has the weirdest practice. he invented the laser he uses on his patients. his working hours are from 6 AM-1 PM (im here for my 7:30 AM appt) Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. if you want to see him at any other time fuck you. for my consultation 2 years ago he sat me on the chair took one look at my face nodded and said to book my first appointment whenever I was ready. Couldn’t afford it at the time till recently, gave his office a call a month ago (again, two years have passed) and he was like “ah yes ayah come in whenever”. he has a very kindly soft spoken old man voice (because he is one) and only speaks to me in Arabic which I understand but can never pick up wtf he is saying over the loud hum of the machine. for my first appointment I was in and out in 8 minutes exactly. he did a trial/spot test on my chin and the hair in the area is completely gone after just one session (it usually takes 6-8). also this is what he gives you to ice the area

[bu1410]

Good morning TUMBLR - March 7th - 2024

''Mr. Plant has owed me a shoe since July 5, 1971."

Ch. VIII - 1985- 1989 - Bahrain - Part 4

HOTEL HILTON While waiting for the apartment in the new condominium to be ready, I was invited to move from Awali to the Hilton hotel in Manama. Obviously I hoped that the work on the condominium would never end, or at least last for a few weeks. The room and treatment at the Hilton were not bad at all, and I could enjoy all the comforts that a modern 5-star hotel offers. During the Bahraini weekend – Thursday and Friday – we witnessed the invasion of the Saudis and Kuwaitis (the most hated nationality in the Gulf, no one cried when their country was invaded by Saddam). They took advantage of the recent opening of the bridge that connected the island to the mainland. Before the inauguration of the bridge that connected the island to the mainland, tourists from other Gulf countries were limited in number, given that they had to use the plane. With the bridge, especially immediately after its opening to traffic, there was a real invasion. Bahrain offered what was strictly prohibited in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, namely women and alcohol. It is true that the latter are two things equally prohibited by the Koran, but we know ''man is not made of wood''. The relative proximity of Mecca made it easier to give in to temptation, so after visiting Bahrain many tourists went on a pilgrimage to the holy city to ask for forgiveness. Then the worst Saudis of the lot arrived, those, so to speak, with Mercedes 600s with the interior covered in sheepskins . People of a rudeness and incivility amplified only by their sudden wealth. Usually they had food brought to their room, so they could eat sitting on the floor and with their hands, which in the restaurant would have attracted the looks and criticisms of other customers. Many of them took advantage of the Filipino maids who served the floors, to the point that the hotel management was forced to employ only male staff for room service. We then learned of a case in which the body of a waitress originally from Sri Lanka was found in a rubbish bin at the Sheraton hotel. The new barbarians went crazy in the lobby and in the swimming pool of the Hilton, there were numerous cases of people falling into the water while dressed, because they never took off their disdasha. One Friday evening I was in the hotel lobby when a Saudi man came in, a guy in his 60s, who literally couldn't stand up. He walked around for a long time, staggering and babbling incomprehensible words, before landing in front of the reception asking out loud:

Miftah…aetani almiftah…. (the key…give me the key…) The Indian employee at the reception looked at him with contempt, and said to him in English:

But don't you see the condition you're in? you're ashamed of the show you're putting on? At which the Arab seemed to regain a little strength, and leaning on the counter he replied: You do not know who I am! Respect! I am SAUDI!!! And I'm so rich that tomorrow I'll buy this shack hotel and you'll be fired!! The Indian suddenly remembered that he was an Indian (and therefore with rights equal to 0.0) made a thousand apologies, called a valet and made sure that the drunk guy was accompanied to his room without further incidents.

Mr. MASTRONARDO Mr. Mastronardo was a short, fat Sicilian, one of the many guys originally from Gela, Sicily. People who worked at the ENI rafinery there. Head of Planning Dpt, Mastronardo was a patient, affable and friendly person. At a certain point, his wife and 22-year-old daughter arrived in Bahrain, who later became engaged and then married to the son of the American director of the BAPCO refinery. I was invited to the engagement ceremony, and we had a nice funny time. To paraphrase local customs a bit, the boy's father gave a speech, accompanied by Mastronardo:

We are happy to announce the engagement of our children, and as the father of the suitor, I must undertake to provide you with the ''countervalue'' of your beautiful daughter. We have established that she is no less than 200 camels, so now I give you the first five, with the commitment to have the other 195 follow as soon as possible. And so saying, the American gave Mastronardo five camels made of wood and fabric, the work of local artisans.

On the occasion of a return trip that coincided with political elections in Italy, I made the trip with the entire Mastronardo' 's family. The mother and daughter carried with them a cute kitten - Moki - in a cat carrier. It was all like ''Ohhh.....Moki nice, don't worry, umm how nice you are, see you in Rome etc'' when they left him on the boarding carousel so they could put him in the hold.

Once we arrived in Rome, drama was lurking. We stood at the baggage carousel anxiously waiting for Moki. When the blue carrier appeared, Mrs. Mastronardo and her daughter let out screams of joy… which turned into screams of pain and anguish when they realized that Moki wasn't inside the carrier !!! The girl was desperate! But how is it possible, she screamed crying. Will it be in the hold? Will it be on the trolley that transported the luggage? Look for him, she shouted, as he tried to enter the suitcase tunnel.

It was all useless, the protests, the crying, the begging, the cat had disappeared, and was never found again. His disappearance remained an unsolved mystery, the most probable hypothesis was that he had never been on the flight: perhaps a baggage loader at Manama airport had seen Moki as the perfect gift for his daughter.

ELECTRICAL ENG. FROM VARESE, ITALY Mr. Carcano was an individual who arrived in Bahrain on a Friday evening to assist the shift electrical Engineers who was inside ''the aquarium''. The manner of his arrival was another of those little 'masterpieces' of Italian ingenuity. He didn't speak a word of English, and naturally at the airport he didn't see the driver hoisting the sign with his name on it ''CARCANO LUIGI''. The fact is that the local driver returned from the airport without him, but saying that on the passenger list he had arrived regularly. They found him the following day at the Marriot hotel, where he had managed to get a taxi to take him, and after he had called in Italy complaining ''that no one came to get me''. The dispute over who should pay the hotel bill went on for months. On a Thursday evening we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Manama. Among us Carcano too, who, when asked by the waitress if he wanted shark fin soup ''hot'', surprisgly replied ''how hot??……very hot'' he said after consulting the small Italian/English dictionary he always carried in your pocket. We heard the conversation but we all kept silent…. When the soup arrived, we were waiting the possible consequences for Carcano - which were not long in coming: after the first spoonful his eyes seemed to pop out from his head!! He became all red, he tried in vain to speak and then someone said to him 'The bathroom …go to the bathroom!!'' Carcano managed to go, while the waitress looked at us astonished saying ''he ask for very hot…not my fault…!!'' Carcano came back after a quarter of an hour, it seemed had recovered, drank ice-cold water, had the soup taken away, and asked an ice cream as dessert. One day Carcano shared some of his curious theories on the curvature of the Earth. He claimed, for example, that traveling from North to South ''we were going downhill'' - ''otherwise how do you explain that in the summer, when we go with the family to spend our holidays in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily (his wife's place of origin) is it commonly said ''I'm going down to Sicily''? And then when you return to Milan, you say ''I'm going up North''? In fact – he continued – during the outward journey I spend long stretches with the gearbox in neutral, precisely because we are traveling downhill! And on the return journey he consumes much more petrol than on the outward journey!!

Once, during the Easter weekend, Carcano went from Varese to Nice, France, with his family in tow. For that Murphy's law that says ''If something has to go wrong, it will'', in fact something went wrong. Upon returning from the beach, Carcano realizes that he has forgotten the keys to his light blue Ritmo 60 3P L inside the locked car: desperation!! Anyone at this point would have tried to open the car with makeshift means, a screwdriver, a can opener - perhaps breaking a deflector, anyone but Carcano. The solution to the problem was to send his wife to VARESE to recover the spare key! And since the Ritmo certainly couldn't be left unattended with the key inside, Carcano spent the night on the comfortable bench on the Promenade des Anglais, right in front of the car, sheltering from the humidity of the night with beach towels which fortunately were they were brought from Italy. From the series: ''They are here…and they're walkin among us…''

[nevermelting]

My theory on magic in Harry Potter

What is magic in the world of Harry Potter? How was it created? I have some theories about that, if you are willing to listen.

Inherent and commanded magic

Every being possess a natural energy - a magical power, some stronger (wizards) or weaker (muggles, squibs) than others. This is so called "inherent magic" which you have since birth. Two kinds of magic use inherent magic of a person - a patronus spell and animagus ritual. Inherent magic can be a cause of illnesses and destructive phantom when suppressed (obscurus) or slow degeneration into the same animal you'd be if you were an animagus (maledictus). Both are wizarding disabilities.

Inherent magic is closely connected to person's body and its instincts, that's why those instincts give shape to an animagus or a patronus. Dark mark or Harry's scar also mean that person's inherent magic is marked,changed in some way. In Harry's case it can even give him inherent magical ability of parseltongue which is only obtained by those who have close kinship with snakes (and can only turn into snake animagi, in my opinion) and which wasn’t his own.

Purebloods believe that pureblood wizards have strongest inherent magic, it's one of the secrets behind their idea of supremacy. But in reality, just like genes, inherent magic may condense due to pureblood heritage – or it may become unstable, up to producing squibs. Muggleborn inherent magic may be weaker – or it may be very strong due to other, often mysterious, reasons. Squibs can see dementors due to leftover inherent magic of their parents.

Objects also have some inherent magic but (unless it's specially enchanted object) it's passive while human and animal magic is active.

Commanded magic

"Commanded" magic is a concentration of will that uses this magic or other source to direct it somewhere.

 Commanded magic occurred naturally too, when wizard or witch wanted to do something (like light a fire) and it suddenly happened on its own, to their surprise. But this magic was still wordless, too simple and prone to accidents - it needed both more power to feed it and some kind of distinct direction marker to prevent mistakes. Someone figured out that speaking commands directed magic better. That's how, based on these impromptu words, first spells were created. 

But wizards still needed something for fine-tuning magic. A tool. Someone figured that as much as pointing a finger was better and a bit later, a stick came into use.

But after using sticks and rods for a long time, wizards couldn't help but notice that people who used magic extensively looked more weak and ill than those who did not. And the reason was simple - they had used too much of their inherent magic. 

Commanding one's inherent magic is not easy and taxing. They needed an additional source of magic power to prevent exhaustion. However, this opened a whole new can of worms - if one were to use an external source wouldn't that....be too difficult? Conflict with wizard's own energy? Was that really possible?

Indeed, first real wands were simply laughable. They often misfired and even served as cautionary tale not to use them at all. But with time, wandmakers really came into their own and Commanded magic as we knew it was born.

Wands

What is a wand? In my opinion, a wand is nothing else but a borrowed magic source from a magical animal. Animal source must have strong inherent magic preferably two or more times stronger than that of a human being.  But this also causes animal to have a magical resistance - remember dragons and their hide that is impenetrable for spells. That's why wizards love especially ferocious magical animals - the stronger their magical resistance is, the stronger their inherent magic is.

Wand wood, as also magical but less resistant substance, (due to low sentience) serves as a "leash" on an animal core, allowing one to command it. I also imagine wand wood to be a "receptive" substance and wand core to be "active" substance. Wand wood reacts to similarity in person's temperament and yields to them but animal core always needs to be tamed and similarity of a person with magical animal can only mean they would tame it better, not that animal source accepts a wizard. These two contradictory forces form a wand.

Wandless magic

Wandless magic is difficult because it uses your own inherent magic as a core to command and your own body as encasement. 

Depending on use and user's level of  aptitude, it may be taxing or dangerous, or both. Wand cores, such as unicorn hair, tend to "wear down", according to Ollivander and there is no reason to think human bodies are different. However, there are people for whom this method is preferable - those who are naturally strong and possess a lot of energy. It's a shame we haven't seen a single truly wandless villain in HP books because that alone would be a statement on how strong they are. Riddle in his post Harry state is obviously no good without a wand - while still strong and possessing some inherent magic to an extent, he is mostly hollow inside and that's why he needs a strong core - Elder wand.

Spells

Why are spells in Latin? Pull up a chair, kids.

 First of all, not all spells are in Latin. "Mimblewimble" - tongue tying curse and "alohomora" - door opening spell are not. Second, it's because even wizarding world is not free from the influence of Roman Empire which was.. literally everywhere. In medieval times, Latin was  "common language of Europe". Being old-fashioned, why wouldn't wizards use Latin? 

But what about other countries, where there was no Latin influence? 

Of course, those countries use different spells and that's the reason for Triwizard tournament - the three largest schools who are under, at least partly, Latin influence and who use Latin spells. In my opinion, it would be most wise for wizards to learn other magical languages because do you really want to be helpless in front of foreign wizards? 

Technically, Harry Potter's spell books should have been called "Latin tradition spells". They are not universal! In fact, I believe that many english-used spells do not work quite as well abroad due to magical resistance of local creatures, objects, plants and people. (Maybe that's why Bill's curse breaking profession is so difficult). 

Other magical languages are not taught at Hogwarts which is understandable (too big of a subject! There are also foreign transfiguration and potions, etc) but personally, if I could, I'd be a wizarding translator who knew spells in arabic, japanese, hindi, swedish and so on.

Next: Theory oh how spells are made (by Snape and others!) Stay tuned!

[sladedick]

im just creepin on your twitter (as you do) and i wondering if u would ever write some rastim? bc 👀👀

yes!!!!! sorry this too k so long i love ra’stim owo

noncon/underage/switching/violence/black humor | on ao3

           Timothy Drake stares at his American school lunch in the fuzzy security camera. His dark circles are visible under his eyes even from this height, and his hair is visibly unwashed. Equations trail their way up pale arms in smudged ink. He shovels another soggy french fry into his mouth, scratching his armpit with the other hand.

           “Are you sure you want that one, Master?” Ra’s’s assistant inquires, standing meekly next to him as he watches the screen.

           “You dare question the will of the Demon?” Ra’s booms.

           “N-no, master, of course not,” he mutters, looking down. Ra’s turns his attention back to Timothy. He’s facedown in his applesauce, clearly snoring.

           “He’s perfect.”

Share the happy news with your detective

           “Happy engagement,” Ra’s says. Tim blinks at him.

           “To who?”

           “To you.”

           “I’m not engaged,” he says blankly.

           “I am pleased to inform you that you are. To me, the Demon’s Head.”

           “No,” Tim declares.

           “Yes.” Ra’s’s grin shows teeth.

           “No!”

           “This is not a discussion,” Ra’s says. “It is the respectful thing to do before I deflower you, Detective.”

           Tim makes a disgusted face. “You won’t be ‘deflowering’ me. I had sex with Superboy.” It had been an ordeal. Kon’s Kryptonian dick had gained semi-sentience and tried to lay its eggs in Tim. Turns out Clark hadn’t bothered to give him ‘the talk’.

           Ra’s’s lip curls. “How inappropriate.”

           “No premarital sex, huh, but rape is a-okay,” Tim mocks.

           “Victor’s rights, Timothy.”

           “That’s bullshit,” Tim says. Ra’s wags a finger in his face.

           “Language, Detective.”

           Tim sticks his tongue out. “You can’t marry minors without parental consent. Your marriage is null and void. Ra’s! Ra’s, listen to me, we have to be in Alabama—”

Keep excessive amounts of alcohol away from your detective

           The reception is ostentatious, of course.

           Ra’s first notices the problem when Tim’s step is slightly halting at the reception, cheeks slightly redder—always red, really, given how pale his skin is even for a European. They’re even red through the several layers of makeup that Ra’s had his servants apply.

           Tim gives a lopsided grin, showing off teeth that, until recently, had had braces on them. That’s the second sign something is off. Timothy has been pouting ever since he was kidnapped.

           “I want — some more campaign,” he says, quite sincerely. A face, as if he knows that’s not quite right. “Clam pain.” A pause. “Sham veins?”

           “Champaign, dear,” Ra’s says softly. Timothy grabs another glass from a passing server before Ra’s can stop it. The reception is ostentatious, and Timothy’s dress is no exception, in lacy whites and pale greens, showing off his body just enough to tell everyone what Ra’s has that they don’t. And how they should be jealous of Ra’s’s high school concubine.

           “It’s poor taste to be drunk at your own reception,” Ra’s says.

           “Your … fault,” Tim says. He sways slightly. Ra’s catches his arm. “Kidnapped me. Miss my family.”

           “You’ll make a new one quite soon.”

           “Fuck you. Hate you,” he mumbles. “Don’t wanna get pregnanant. Pregant. Prenengant.”

           Ra’s snatches the glass of champagne from Timothy’s hand as the boy slumps slightly against him.

           “I insist,” he says coldly, angrily, “that you be conscious for the consummation.”

           He takes some pleasure in seeing Timothy’s skin lose its redness for the first time that night, falling away to reveal a pale face. Timothy grabs desperately for the alcohol, but Ra’s whisks it away just in time.

           “Absolutely not.”

             2. Keep your detective well entertained

           “You can’t all be monks,” Tim tries to explain. The ninja sat in a circle around him squint at him through the eyeholes in their masks, heavy armor clinking as they shift. Tim repeats it in Arabic for the two that don’t speak English, and then switches to it for good.

           “I wish to be of the shadow subclass,” Ninja No. 3 says.

           “As do I,” adds Ninja No. 1.

           “The point of Dungeons and Dragons is to be something you’re not. It’s escapism.” The four guards, practically brainwashed into the service of Ra’s al Ghul, stare at him. “Nobody is allowed to be a ninja monk.”

           “I will be a warlock,” says Ninja No. 2, waving about the bit of paper that Tim had given him, translated from what Tim remembers of the Player’s Guide. “In service of the great Head of the Demon—”

           “This is a fantastical universe. Ra’s doesn’t exist. See? Escapism!” Tim sighs. “If you don’t cooperate I’m going to tell him you were very inadequate and suggest severe punishment.” He stares sternly.

           The ninja pale. Tim wouldn’t do that, really, because then they would end up dead. He knows exactly how much influence he has with Ra’s. The threat, however, is still good.

           “I will be a fighter,” sighs Ninja No. 2. “In the service of nobody.”

           “Perfect!” Tim grins. He feels like he should patronizingly pat their heads, but refrains. That’s the kind of thing they might only accept from Ra’s.

           “I will be a sorcerer,” says Ninja No. 4, “who works for only himself, and wields fantastic power.”

           Tim nods enthusiastically.

           “I will be a rogue,” says Ninja No. 1, “who overthrows his glorious leader and takes his place, murdering his kin and raping his wife—”

           “Wait just a second—”

           “—and sending all his castles and being to endless ruin, in search of individuality.”

           “I mean,” Tim says, “I’ll allow it …”

           (Ninja No. 1 doesn’t show up the next week. Neither do any of the others. It wasn’t your fault, Ra’s assures him, though please do not encourage individuality, Timothy.)

             3. Be assured your detective is sexually satisfied and interested

           Tim sits on one side of the wooden table, idly tracing the patterned texture with one

finger. Ra’s sits stiff and regal as always, a few slips of paper right in front of him. This is obviously a Meeting. Ra’s is always around Tim, but a Meeting is different. Ra’s has something to talk about, and Tim probably doesn’t want to hear it.

             “Beloved,” Ra’s says.

             “Ra’s,” Tim replies. His voice is considerably cold. More tired.

             “I’ve been doing some research,” Ra’s says. “You have been quite uninterested in our sexual activity.”

             “It’s because I object to the rape,” Tim says.

             “Ah, I think not. I think you’re simply not … stimulated enough. So I found out what you might be interested in.”

             “Please don’t—”

             The papers are slapped onto the table like a death warrant, and Tim is stared in the face by his last six months of search history.

             man turns little brother gay big dick blowjob looks back at him like the antichrist with flaming, doomed eyes. Tim pales. He tries to think of exactly what he’d been searching on PornHero before Ra’s had caught up with him, but his mind is suddenly completely blank.

             bears rail twink anal dp rimming glares accusingly at him. Tim knows that Ra’s has a perfectly neutral expression on his face. He always does. But Tim can’t force himself to meet the green eyes, not even on the pain of losing some of his pride.

             “And some more enlightening content,” Ra’s adds, putting another piece of paper on the table. Tim can barely bring himself to open his eyes and look.

             batman fucks robin hard in the ass, batman and robin blowjob, batmanxrobin—

             Tim covers his eyes. He can’t take it.

             “You’re particularly understimulated in the bedroom. Would you prefer that I don a suit in the manner of your adopted father? Would you enjoy referring to me as—”

             “No!” Tim almost screams. He wants to cover his ears. “Ra’s, please. Please don’t, okay? I’ll be good, okay? I’ll pretend I like getting fucked. Just please stop.”

             Ra’s makes a little humming sound. “This is not a punishment, Beloved. I am simply curious.” The rustling sound of papers lets him know what’s going on. “Though perhaps you can explain this? Superboy x reader fluffy love fanfiction?”

             Tim turns white.

             “I’m going to kill myself,” he declares, and he’s not sure if he’s joking or not.

             4. Install safety bars on windows; learn modern youth jargon

           “I’m going to kill myself,” Timothy says.

           It’s something he says a lot. Quite a bit, really, typically any time something goes even a little wrong. Timothy had explained to him, a sullen glare in his eyes, that it was a joke. Ra’s had eventually been persuaded.

           The fact that Timothy is crouched on the window ledge, the mountain wind making long-grown dark hair—tended to with the most expensive shampoos—swirl out behind Timothy, makes the thought of him joking much less likely.

           “That is a choice you will regret,” Ra’s says coolly. He could try to grab him, but Timothy would fall out of the window and die anyways. Then when it came time to punish him properly, Timothy could attempt to childishly shift the blame.

           Timothy flips him off.

           Ra’s raises an eyebrow. “How rude, Beloved.”

           “Yeet,” Timothy says. Ra’s assumes this also means I’m going to kill myself because right after Timothy does it, he’s falling through the air. Ra’s doesn’t hear the crack of his bones or see the blood spatter, but he sees the broken body splayed in the snow below, certainly dead.

           “How inconvenient,” Ra’s says, to nobody in particular. Except, perhaps, the three guards who monitor Timothy at all times. He makes a mental note to have them executed.

             6. Discourage your detective from staging coups

             “Fuck,” Tim says.

             “Indeed.” Ra’s’s teeth are perfect, pearly white. A wickedly curved sword at his side slowly drips blood into the oceans pooled around his feet, the corpses’ blood eking its way towards Tim’s booted feet.

             Tim stomps. Blood splashes, staining the bottom of his robes. “Fuck!”

             Ra’s sheathes his sword. The front of his shirt is crimson, showing that he, at least, did not escape unscathed. Tim draws some small satisfaction from that, even though he feels the guards still loyal to Ra’s grab at his shoulders, yanking his arms behind his back and holding him still.

             “A valiant attempt, Detective,” Ra’s says. “Next time, I suggest purging your dissenters’ ranks for spies more carefully.” He moves forward, and Tim sags slightly in the arms of the guards.

             “I’m sorry?” Tim offers.

             “You’re not.”

             Tim sticks his tongue out.

             7. Properly reprimand your detective

             “I’m sorry,” Tim whimpers, head hanging between his shoulders as he stares down at the bed beneath him, fingers curled in the sheets, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

             A hand cards gently through sweaty hair. “Shh, Timothy, it will be over soon,” Ra’s murmurs. The back of the boy’s thighs and buttocks are covered in red switch marks, from the birch thing that Ra’s holds in the hand that does not hold Timothy. The skin burns red and pink and parts bleed. Timothy won’t be able to sit down for a month without remembering this.

             The next one whips down with a wicked noise. Timothy chokes, spasms, arms shaking. He gasps, tears clinging to his long, pretty lashes like pearls.

             “You are free to cry if you like, Beloved,” Ra’s says softly. “Forty out of fifty. You’re almost finished.”

             8. Curb attempts to relate to the youth

           Ra’s throws his sword. It impales the man through the gut; a wound that will leave him squirming for hours in agony before he finally expires.

           “Yeet.”

           (Timothy doesn’t speak to him for a week.)

             9. Keep track of possessions around your detective

           “Is that my cape, Detective?”

           Tim wraps the green folds further around himself, his small form almost disappearing inside of it. “Maybe.”

           “Are you going to return it?”

           The high collar hides Timothy’s face, and slightly muffles his answer. “No.”

            10. Take very good care of your detective, and give it nobody else to turn to when it hurts

           Timothy’s eyes are wide, blank oceans, full of a sort of pain and sadness that Ra’s knows will pass, but he still almost dislikes seeing in his consort’s eyes. Ra’s’s arm is wrapped around him, fingers splaying dark hair around them, Timothy warm against his chest. His eyes are closed, the two of them wrapped in Ra’s’s cape. Before, Timothy would flinch away whenever he was to be held. Now, he almost begs to be touched with his eyes, even when he is too proud to ask.

           A shift of him. Ra’s stays still, doesn’t move, enjoying the fact of Timothy against him. A hand slowly pets his hair.

           Something is wet against his chest, where the neck of his shirt is cut down to reveal his chest. Ra’s almost has to pry Tim’s face off of him, and it comes away teary.

           “How do you fair, my love?”

           A hand rests on Ra’s’s shoulder, pale fingers against dark, tanned skin. The eyes look past Ra’s.

           “I hate you,” Timothy whispers. It’s not an accusation. Simply a sad, broken confession.

           “I know,” Ra’s says, almost, almost sympathetic.

           A pause,

           A long, long pause.

           “I love you,” Tim whispers, and it’s even softer, barely audible. And then he’s diving back against Ra’s’s chest, Ra’s’s head tucked above Tim’s.

           “I know,” Ra’s murmurs.

           The look in his eyes is the stare of a man who has killed millions, and will kill millions more.

[workingontravel]

If the borders refuse me, I refuse them

(You can read a Swedish translation of this text here.) I mentioned this project to a friend. She immediately said: You should talk to Ghayath Almadhoun. Ghayath Almadhoun is a poet whose poetry has touched me. He is also a poet working with several languages, living and writing in many places. Finding a time when we could meet was a challenge, due to his frequent travelling. I’m happy we managed. His account of travelling for work brings together the personal and the political, the funny and the sad, the historical and the present, in extraordinary ways.

Ghayath Almadhoun: I travel for many reasons that I hardly understand. Some of them started already in childhood. I was born in Damascus, with a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, in the Yarmouk refugee camp for Palestinians. It was just tents when they founded it in 1948, but now it has become buildings, part of the city. The first questions in my life were: What are we? Why do they say that we are not Syrian but Palestinian? Why, then, am I not in Palestine? 

It was very difficult for my father to explain to a six-year-old why land in Asia provided a solution for the antisemitism and racism against the Jews in Europe. But later, things became even more complicated. I discovered that I am not Palestinian-Syrian. I am a Palestinian from Syria. The Palestinian-Syrians are the Palestinians who arrived to Syria in 1948, when Israel occupied eighty per cent of Palestine. As the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe all accepted this, the Arabic governments understood that the land that was occupied had become Israel. As a solution, they gave the refugees all the papers they needed. So those who arrived from Palestine to Syria in 1948 have the same civil rights as the Syrian people. But our family came after the occupation of Gaza, in 1967. When Israel occupied the Gaza strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights from Syria, Sinai from Egypt and some parts of Jordan, the international community said: “This is occupation, and Israel should leave.” The Arabic nations then decided to not give any papers to these Palestinians in order to not provide any solutions for Israel. I found myself growing up without civil rights. I was not allowed to work. I was not allowed to take driving lessons. I was not allowed to leave the country, and if I did leave for any reason, I would not be allowed back. As we were not allowed to own a house, the house is in the name of my mother, who is Syrian. But if she died, the government would take the house and sell it. This, that I couldn’t inherit, was the thing that hurt me the most.

When I understood that I was already born outside, in exile, as they say, I became fascinated by the idea that there are no borders. If the borders refuse me, I refuse them. When I began to study, I also understood that my father was a poet. I began to think about poetry. I felt connected to many Surahs in the Quran, such as The Poet’s Surah, Surah 26. At the end of the Surah, it says:

“And the poets – the deviators follow them; Do you not see that in every valley they roam And that they say what they do not do?” Travelling is the reality of Arab poets, and poetry is very much connected to travelling in the Arabic tradition. Take the most famous Arabic poet El Mutanabbi. In the 800th century, he travelled, but most of all, his poetry travelled. If El Mutanabbi said a poem in Bagdad, the people in Damascus got it in a matter of hours by pigeon. From there, it went everywhere. His poem would arrive in Andalusia within a week. He himself came two months later.

So, I began to write poetry. My friends all went to Beirut, to Jordan or anywhere. They got invitations to go and read there. But I couldn’t travel, because I didn’t have a passport, papers or even an ID. So, the pressure began to build inside. This continued until I turned thirty, in 2008. Then I left the country. I made a sort of fake passport and went to Sweden. After I got a real Swedish passport, it’s: “Catch me if you can!” The travelling is also connected to my writing. For example, I could visit a place, read about it, discuss it and then I write a poem. I did it for example when Assad used chemical weapons on the suburbs of Damascus. Many people got killed in the first attack with the nerve gas sarin. There were 1,400 deaths, out of which 900 were women and children. I saw these bodies shaking. The pupils of the eyes go small. I started to think about chemicals. And I found that the first chemical attack happened in the city of Ypres in Belgium, on 22 April,1915. I went there for the 100th anniversary of that event. I visited 170 cemeteries. They counted 600,000 graves, and I visited all of them in two weeks. At one gate, they have written the names of all the dead soldiers no matter where they came from – France, England, Canada. They play music in honour of one of them every day and speak about what they know about that specific soldier. They had done this for eighty years without stopping for one single day. Even during the Second World War, they played every day. The problem is that they need 600,000 days to finish the names. I listened to such concerts for fourteen days. Then I wrote a poem that moves between the past and the present, Ypres, Syria and Palestine. Another time, I went to Antwerp to do research about blood diamonds. But during that month, thousands of people started to drown in the Mediterranean. So, my poem started with blood diamonds and ended with Syrians drowning in the sea. By the way, this is not political poetry, this is my life.

So, all in all: I travel in order to write. I’m making up for what I missed when I was without papers. I’m a travelling poet like in the Quran. And I’m born in no country, so I don’t believe in borders. But the main reason why I’m travelling like I have been doing now, 345 days a year and not even staying in Sweden for a full week, is another. When I came to Sweden, I accepted Stockholm as my city because Damascus was in the background. Every time I felt tired of being a foreigner, I remembered that Damascus was there, that one day I could go back and feel relief. In 2011, the Syrian revolution began. I really supported it, and it made my hopes of going to Damascus grow. But people I knew got killed, family members, almost all my friends. Cities I knew were destroyed. And the dictatorship won. The country was destroyed. My hopes of ever going back were lower than ever. Damascus disappeared from my background. Everything was shaken. Also, Stockholm didn’t belong to me anymore. What broke me was my brother. I lost him on 2 April 2016, killed by Assad. I was on tour: I was supposed to spend fifteen days in Holland. The second gig was with Anne Vegter, the poet of the nation. We finished our discussion. I went outside and I put the mobile on. Then my other brother called and told me. I disappeared from the universe for two hours. I woke up with people around me. We went to our friend’s house and I asked him to book me a ticket to Stockholm. The coming twenty-four hours were the most difficult in my life. While the plane was over Denmark, I understood there was something wrong. I wanted to tell the pilot to stop and let me off. Why was I going to Stockholm and not Damascus? Stockholm is even further away from Damascus. What is the difference if I cry in Amsterdam or if I cry in Stockholm? So I started travelling this way. As I see it, the best way to survive trauma is to be on the road. When you arrive, the problems will come. I noticed this in someone I know who was in Syria for four years during the bombings. He lost all his friends. People died in his arms. ISIS arrested him before he left the country. His trip here took eight months. All that time, he was doing ok. But when he got here, it took forty days and then the post trauma hit him. That made me even more scared. So, I began to ask myself: What will happen if I begin to travel and never let myself arrive? The panic attacks will wait for me to be settled. But what if I don’t settle? After the death of my brother I wrote a poem. The writing took place in maybe sixty places, twenty countries. If I would sign it with the names of the cities, that would be as long as the poem. What held me in this is that somebody else paid most of my tickets and travels. In this sense, I survived through poetry twice. On one hand, it’s about writing for survival; writing what hurts me on a paper. But then there are the festivals and the residences and the scholarships bringing me from here to there. Many of these festivals were shocked that I only needed one ticket. Germany pays my ticket from France. Belgium pays my ticket from Germany. Everyone pays only to bring me.

It happens that there are holes in the schedule, maybe even seven days empty. I fill these holes in order to not stay. I ask the festival to make my ticket longer and I pay the hotel myself before I go to the next festival. Or, if the ticket can’t be changed, I book a flight to the Arabic book fairs. In Arabic countries, the book fairs are two to three weeks long. And they schedule them in a systematic way, so they cover the whole year. Any time you want to go to a book fair in an Arabic country, you can. There are around 540 million Arabic-speaking people in the world, in 22 countries with 22 totally different cultures. So, when you go there to sign your book, there will be completely different receptions. You’re a star in Kuwait, they hate you in Libya, and you’re a bestseller in Iraq…

I don’t even remember all the places I have been to, I mix them up. The security personnel in the airport know me and say hello to me. Sometimes I see them in the morning. I go home to throw out the summer clothes and throw in the winter clothes because I’m going to the other side of the planet. Then I see them again in the afternoon. People understand after a while that if they are trying to stop me, they will lose me. If the train is fast and heavy, you should go with it, not stand in front of it. But the routine with friends is you go to their house, bring wine and cook and they come to you next time. When you are travelling again and again and don't have dinner with them, they are not your friends anymore, in a way. You lose your roots.

It is so good when you arrive in places like sunny California, cornfields and wine. And meeting people, discussing with them, having good food, having intellectual exchanges about philosophy, life, racism, patriarchy, everything I’m interested in. But physically it’s tiring. I have a theory I call The Pillow Theory. There are problems in life such as patriarchy, occupation, capitalism and the differences in the shape of pillows in the hotels. I’m fighting for the right of every person to have a size that fits them. Because of pillows and tiredness and lost friends, I’ve started to think I need a strategy to travel less. Also, my girlfriend is involved in this. Our idea is to let my mind think that I’m travelling though I’m not, by taking long residencies outside Sweden. So now I have a five-month residency in Amsterdam and after that a whole year at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin programme, a scholarship. It works, in a way. When I went to Amsterdam, I started longing for Sweden as my country. Because I understood I would be away for long, I became homesick for the first time. And when I feel the thirst for travel I can make it subtler, because technically, I am already travelling. Through this, I started travelling less. Now, I travel only twice a month.

When I travel, I bring my laptop. They asked me in India what I would bring if the house were on fire. I said my laptop, because there is another house inside it. What is a home for a Palestinian born in a refugee camp if not language? It’s something I inherited from my father. He told me about paradise, the land of milk and honey. When I got my Swedish passport, I went to Palestine. There was nothing. No milk and no honey. It’s only in the dream of the Palestinians. The first time I went there, I was held six and a half hours at the airport. With all the happiness and sadness that I had about being there, finally the Israeli let me in. To this day, I never spoke with my father about that, because they threw him out twice, once from Ashkelon to Gaza in 1948, then from Gaza to Egypt in 1967, and he left his mother there. Until 2012 when she died, he didn’t meet her.

Home is connected to the mother tongue. I miss hearing my name. I used to say to God all the time that I miss Syria and Damascus here in Sweden. But when I asked God to connect me with Syria, he must have misunderstood me. Instead of taking me to Syria, he sent the Syrians to me.

[filmstoriesarticles]

10 Amazing people from 10 Countries

The following video shows you 10 people from 10 different countries each with their own unique story I hope you enjoy going.

Filmstoriesarticles

United States

Meet Austin hi, I'm Austin which I worked at NASA what's interesting about Austin is that when he was three years old he had a fever that turned him deaf and from age 3 to 12 he did not have a hearing aid or no signing but despite that he was so smart he skipped a year at college got into UCLA interned at NASA as an engineer twice interned at amazon as an engineer got a turnover too and is now running a startup with this guy. I can also sleep peacefully and he's only 20 but TO CONTINUE READ HERE

10 Amazing people from 10 Countries

10 Amazing people from 10 Countries 10 Amazing people from 10 Countries https://www.filmstoriesarticles.com/2021/11/10-amazing-people-from-10-countries.html

Brazil

Meet Neymar this is often Neymar the third-best footballer in the world odds are you saw him play with Barcelona but before he made it to Barcelona he came from humble beginnings he grew up during this house during a poor neighborhood in Santos brazil and ever since he was a toddler he was really specialized at street football now he's one among the simplest within the world but even with the celebrity he has not lost his roots his dad remains his manager his mom is that the president of his youth nonprofit center and his sister's face is tattooed on his body he even holds a yearly street soccer tournament with a red bull that flies within the best young soccer players within the planet for free of charge to play with him in his hometown Neymar is just a person that loves two things family and football and he does both really rather well that's Neymar.

Myanmar

Meet me hi I'm 11 years old I sleep in Myanmar he lives in vagat Myanmar which may be a place where every morning you'll awaken to the present beautiful sight he, however, says she finds it boring by now what's interesting about me albeit she's 11 years old she supports her education and her family of eight because her father pile he got big bike snake your mother half robin your older sister accept her husband second sister study the third sister need to involve cook younger sister nothing younger brother nothing so she decided to be a guide that's why her English is extremely good and to be a far better guide she wanted to converse with as many of us as possible speak german french Arabic Hebrew Spanish Thai Sawasdee Chinese Japanese Konichiwa you're amazing to many thanks such a lot.

Rwanda

Meet Ernestine survived the genocide in Rwanda against her Tutsi people she was attacked by a machete and thrown into the river together with her hands tied to die. She survived but her family of six didn't what's inspiring about her story is that she made peace with the soldiers who wanted to kill her Patrick was one among them He was a government soldier who was guilty of the genocide and at some point, he was shooting at the church that elnestie was hiding in together with her relations who died thereafter he got out of jail. He sought forgiveness and despite her trauma elnestine forgave him and even invited him to her own wedding if elnestine can forgive the one that tried to kill her and her family then, I'm sure you the person watching can't forgive her anyone oh many thanks guys you're awesome.

Newzealand

Me Jordan g'day my name is Jordan and I am knowledgeable dad 18 months ago Jordan was born reception together with his neonate so he made a video on the way to hold your baby the video went so viral that Jordan quit his job to become knowledgeable celebrity dad in new Zealand now Jordan has one wife two kids 95 parenting videos 1.2 million followers and 180 million views but Jordan isn't a psychologist on parenting I'm just a dad who wants to form parents laugh with my silly parenting videos when Jordan isn't making videos he's throwing his shoes around like this is often a gumboot and throwing it really far may be a proper competition here in New Zealand, yes, it's he competed within the national gumboot throwing competition and shot an entire series thereon on youtube at the highest of the day Jordan wants to be the simplest dad and therefore the best gun booth thrower within the world.

The Philippines

I'm Richard Juan. I'm 24 years old and I am a number model entrepreneur and okay relax Richard may be a model with 2,60,000 friends that are 75 women Richard begin your clothes what are you talking about this is often a studio now stop it geez thanks to actual copyright issues Richard says I even have to censor this but it isn't Richard's modeling career that's interesting it's how he trolled the entire miss universe event last week whenever a contestant was on tv when Richard was within the background he would dab here ruin the shot ruin that shot he dabbed such tons that official photos of contestants were ruined with dabs I don't know why anyone would do this Richard but many thanks.

Syria

Lives at a refugee camp in Greece and, she is a great cook she is so great that she can take the limited food rations that she gets and turn them into an incredibly delicious meal like this one using only her humble kitchen and resources had eight daughters and four boys and a husband sadly her husband died and the rest of her kids are scattered around Europe turkey Iraq and Syria now Omaha lives by herself with only two of her kids but she still enjoys cooking for a lot of people like she used to in Syria so even with limited resources um remains a generous soul that enjoys feeding the hungry whether you are a refugee or not.

Palestine

Supreme Muhammad hi my name is Mohammed and I'm an optimistic yogi I don't know what that means but what I do know is that Muhammad is a fast sprinter he's so fast he's trying to qualify for the Olympics why because NASA I want to bring home the first Olympic medal for Palestine yes there are currently zero Olympic medals won by Palestinians and Muhammad wants to be the first to inspire hope amongst fellow Palestinians it all started when Muhammad searched on youtube for videos on how to sprint and five years after he's been competitively training for the Olympics day in and day out just to get that Olympic medal for minas it's not about the mother it's what the mother would represent for Palestine make sense Mohammed I wish you the best of luck in Olympics 2020 in Tokyo arigato gozaimasu that was love it.

Israel

Meet danite hi my name is Denise perei and I print clothes danite is the first person in the world to 3d print clothes from home for nine lonely months she tried to see if making 3d printed clothes is possible at all it was possible and she made a beautiful collection of clothes as her school project but her grade was below average and that was the end of it but her fiance said you have to share a story on Facebook and they did their Facebook video went viral with 5 million views and that changed her life forever she got invited to speak in more than 20 countries got 1.5 million views for her ted talk designed and printed a dress for the Paralympics opening ceremony and is now working to let anybody print their own 3d jackets online and it feels like a real fabric thanks to people like the neat instead of shopping for clothes soon you'll be able to download and print them at home nice that was awesome.

Morocco

Meet botnan it's me buddha name as is when I mean dash bradnan is an isis member an al Qaeda member Taliban member a follower of Jesus and a Jewish merchant but what is not a terrorist jew or a Christian he is an actor and he looks a lot creepily a lot like yes batman lives in what is that which is the Los Angeles of morocco .where many Hollywood films are shot and because TO CONTINUE READ HERE

10 Amazing people from 10 Countries 10 Amazing people from 10 Countries https://www.filmstoriesarticles.com/2021/11/10-amazing-people-from-10-countries.html

FOR MORE REAL FACTS FOLLOW

Filmstoriesarticles

[nataliesnews]

Politics and when I came to Israel 22.4.2021

21/4/2021  I really suggest you watch the short movie on Netflix….The present…….and I endorse every scene in that movie. It could be a documentary. It is hard to watch. But believe me it represents every aspect of the lives of Palestinians. One example I always remember….Azzun…a man told he can only take one chicken through the checkpoint. He says it is for his family of 12. No he is told only one. Also a case when a soldier told a man that he was wearing an army jacket and forced him to take it off and the Machsomwatch person heard him saying, “Wow, my brother will really like this jacket”

 The political situation. No comment. I cannot listen to Netanyahu on the tv. He is given prime time and primes himself. Easier to read and keep my blood pressure under control. I had an MRI for the brain as so often in the mornings when I wake up my left is absolutely stiff. They found no explanation but at least they found the brain. I will now speak to Michal, my orthopaedical friend if there is anything to be done. I take plenty magnesium and drink tonic so it can’t be that.

 We  (machsom) were at the DCO and twice men came up to us to say that they had been prevented from entering Israel for some time and just when the ban ended, without their knowing it, had been slapped on for an extra few years. No reason has to be given by the Shabak. All we can do is tell them to contact Sylvia and her team who deal with these cases. So often they tell us that they have already been to Israeli or Palestinian lawyers, paid them an arm and a leg, with no results. Sylvia has lawyers who are honest and often have very good results to deal with the problem. We are  well known as sometimes, even when we stop at the grocery shop near there, people come up to us or the shopkeeper tells us of problems.

 It is very worrying about this evening. Attacks from both sides but the problem is that while Palestinians are often arrested immediately, nothing is done about the Jewish extremists and even if the latter are arrested, the revolving door takes place almost immediately. I am wondering what to do as Tag Maier has written about it and there may be a decision to go to the city also to see and report on what is happening there. I am invited to a family in Hebron for the end of the fast day to share their meal with them but may decide not to go so as to go to the Damascus gate or the centre of town. Tomorrow also I am going with Anat, from Machsom, to the Old City as there has been a lot of trouble there. It is Ramadan and Palestinians come from all over Israel and the West Bank (for those who are lucky enough to get permits) to pray.

 Jewish extremists plan rally in Jerusalem’s Old City amid rising tensions

Police to deploy in force as Lehava head says members of anti-miscegenation group will march Thursday to Damascus Gate 'without fear'; report of plans by activists to bring weapons

https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-extremists-plan-rally-in-jerusalems-old-city-amid-rising-racial-tensions/

4 arrested, 1 ‎hurt, in Jewish-Arab clashes in Jerusalem; reporters assaulted

TV crews attacked by mobs, shoved to ground and beaten; violence comes amid rising ethnic tensions in capital

https://www.timesofisrael.com/4‎-arrested-1‎-hurt-in-jewish-arab-clashes-in-jerusalem-reporters-assaulted/

  I was listening to an interview that Idit Teperson sent me about her father and was reminded  of when I came to Israel and the reception I received at the airport. I am alone and my aunt and uncle, Bessie and Joe, took me to the airport. Those were the days when you walked to the plane. I remember the tarmac as being deserted except for me and my small suitcase…..or was is the lonesome feeling I had inside me. I arrived in Israel and got off the plane completely confused. I knew I was to be met. I don’t know if it was by someone from the SA Fed or the Jewish Agency. All I know is that I stood there  not knowing where to turn. The first time I had left SA, the first time I had flown. I went to a policeman and said that I was to be met there but I did not know whom to look for.

 He must have  helped me because I remember going to Tel Aviv in a taxi with two men. One was evidently a local and the other was more evidently a big macher. All I know is that neither of them addressed a word to me all the way to Tel Aviv, hardly a welcome, nothing. Looking back on it again I think what a pair of shits. I was going into something completely unknown. They dropped me off at what I think was then the South African hostel and I don’t think that the man even took me inside. I was taken to a room where the other girls were not present but found a note from them welcoming me and telling me to help myself, also in the morning, to anything that was in the fridge. I don’t remember much about the next day or two but then another woman and I were put into a taxi and sent to Beit Hashita to the ulpan. The woman was Tanya. I am not sure what her surname was but she was very different from anyone I had ever known.

 She had been in the theatre scene in South Africa as far as I remember where she had had a non-Jewish boyfriend. I don’t know that had brought her to Israel. But a few weeks after we arrived on the kibbutz it turned out she was pregnant by him. Looking back now I ask myself if I asked her what had brought her to Israel but I know that the boyfriend was the father. They were very good to her on the kibbutz and eventually she gave birth to a little boy, also like her a redhead. He was adopted and I often wonder what happened to him. Today he must be nearly 60.

 She continued what was a very different experience. On the kibbutz we had a lovely woman who looked after the ulpaniestiem. We learned Hebrew half day and worked in the fields or wherever half day. I started writing this and find that it opens up so many memories. What a pity we did not have internet in those days. Ruthie Shemi. I think that when we arrived she was not yet divorced and she was very good to Tanya. Her husband, Aaron, afterwards left the kibbutz and married Tanya but then I lost contact with her.

     How I came to Israel

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/wife-of-mk-elkin-verbally-accosted-by-likud-supporters-near-her-home-665667Natanya Natalie Ginsburg

Henrietta Szold 2

Migdal Nofim Room 708

Kiryat Hayovel

Jerusalem 9650230

Israel

Tel 0528-375593

Nofim Tel 972-(0)2-6580222

Home 972 (2)6418387 no messages

Cellphone preferable

[harryandmeghan0-blog]

The Sussexes Visit the Atlas Mountains in Support of Girls' Education Programmes

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/the-sussexes-visit-the-atlas-mountains-in-support-of-girls-education-programmes/

The Sussexes Visit the Atlas Mountains in Support of Girls' Education Programmes

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex travelled to the Atlas Mountains for day two of Royal Visit Morocco.

It’s been a hectic 24 hours for the couple. They travelled from London on a delayed Royal Air Maroc commercial flight yesterday. Following a short arrival ceremony, they were driven to the royal residence in Rabat where they were greeted by Crown Prince Moulay Hassan. This morning, they took a helicopter to the town of Asni for several engagements focused on education. They were both in great spirits upon arrival and we saw plenty of great shots like this…

British Ambassador to Morocco Thomas Reilly told The Times, the visit is intended to “open up new avenues and potential areas of co-operation”. Last night a Kensington Palace aide said: “Their Royal Highnesses are very much looking forward to the visit and are grateful to their hosts and the British Embassy for arranging such an interesting programme. They are particularly pleased that they will have the opportunity to meet so many young Moroccans over the next few days.”

More from The Sunday Times:

‘Despite its brevity, the visit nonetheless represents a testing challenge for the visitors, not least because the town of Asni is only 10 miles from the mountainous area where two Scandinavian tourists were murdered in December, allegedly by Moroccan jihadists. Both British and Moroccan officials are confident that this was an isolated incident and no security problems are expected.

Less predictable are the protests that have lately shaken Morocco, which had seemed to escape largely unscathed from the regional turmoil of recent years.

Police in Rabat last week used water cannons and truncheons to break up a march by teachers and others marking the anniversary of the 2011 Arab Spring protests. Other unforeseen hazards include Morocco’s notoriously mangy cats, which solicit stroking but can often pass on infections.’

The Atlas Mountains extend some 2,500km across northwestern Africa, spanning Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, separating the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline from the Sahara Desert.

Meghan is incredibly passionate about girls’ education, which is why it came as no surprise when Her Majesty passed her patronage of the Association of Commonwealth Universities to her. During Harry and Meghan’s visit to Fiji in October, the Duchess gave a powerful speech in which she drew on her own experiences and the importance of making every effort to educate young people. “I am fully aware of the challenges of being able to afford this level of schooling for many people around the world – myself included. It was through scholarships, financial aid programmes and work-study where my earnings from a job on campus went directly towards my tuition – that I was able to attend university,’ she said. And, without question, it was worth every effort. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to receive the education they want, but more importantly the education they have the right to receive. And for women and girls in developing countries, this is vital.”

When it came to planning the itinerary, Educational For All was a perfect match for Meghan.

The organisation supports girls from very rural communities to continue their education beyond primary school. They are often prohibited by the costs associated with travelling to the nearest secondary school, often a number of kilometres away in larger towns. In some rural areas, up to 83% of women are illiterate – a shocking figure. They believe “Educate a Girl, Educate the Next Generation”.

Meghan was given a Henna tattoo by seventeen-year-old Samira. It is considered a blessing in Morocco for any significant event.

— Lizzie Robinson (@LizzieITV) February 24, 2019

Chris Ship shared a photo of the tattoo.

According to Roya Nikkhah both Harry and Meghan were eager to speak French to the students. Meghan recently revealed she’s been “trying to get better at my French over the last year”. Several reporters commented Meghan’s command of the language was “impressive”.

More from the Mail Online:

‘First they chatted in English, ‘your English is fantastic’ Meghan told her. ‘You do your homework here as well as research? It’s your last year of school, do you want to go to university and what do you want to do?’

Saida said she wanted to be a writer like her favourite author William Shakespeare. Meghan then started chatting in French to a group of girls, telling them it was nice they could all do their exams together. Saida said: ‘Her French was good and it was a surprise she spoke it so well ‘But Harry said he didn’t speak French at all. ‘She was better than her husband!’

As Meghan chatted with the girls, one said (in English): ‘Thank you so much for being here with us.’ Meghan replied: ‘It’s an honour to be here ‘I’d love to come back. What’s happening here and so many places all over the world with more girls getting an education, it changes the future and changes the future for everyone not just the girls.’

Education For All build and run high-quality boarding houses for girls from 12–18. Everything is provided for free including three nutritious meals a day, hot showers, cosy beds, access to computers, study support via an international volunteer programme and dedicated, local housemothers. The overall environment makes it easy for the girls to settle in and thrive in their studies. They see an average of 90% pass rate across all years and over fifty girls from EFA are currently enrolled in University.

The Duchess was delighted to meet students.

Rebecca English reports:

‘During their visit to Asni today, Meghan told a group of Moroccan schoolgirls how proud she was of them. At present, few girls from rural communities in Morocco continue their education after primary school due to a host of economic and social reasons. 

Chatting to some of the girls that are being helped by EFA, Meghan said through an interpreter: ‘We are very proud of all of you. You are such good role models. Admiring the view of the mountains from the roof top of a local hotel, Harry said: ‘Maybe we should move here. Amazing views. Have you all been helped to go to school here? Do you take everything back to your communities?’

A video from the engagement.

[embedded content]

Meghan and Harry ran over to meet two very excited little girls afterwards.

More from the Mail Online:

‘Meanwhile, two little girls got their wish to meet ‘the Prince and Princess’ after waiting in their party dresses for two hours. Rania, five, and Ryannna, two, were taken by their mother, Clare Minejem to see Harry and Meghan as they visited the small town in the Atlas Mountains.

The couple walked in without seeing the youngsters, who were waving a British and Moroccan flags, but they spotted them as they left and Meghan immediately made a beeline for the sisters and bent down to say hello. Meghan shook their hands and said: ‘Hi girls, so cute! What are are your names? So sweet!‘ The duchess also showed them a henna drawing on her hand and said: ‘Nice, isn’t it? So pretty! ‘

The girls’ mother is nurse who moved to Morocco from Bangor, Northern Ireland, 12 years ago and settled down in Marrakesh, where she also runs a health education charity. As her couple said their goodbyes, her father, Russell McCaughey, who is visiting shouted out to a laughing Harry: ‘No grand slam then?‘ in relation to the England rugby result. ‘No-one did,’ he shouted back.’

The Ambassador described it as a “lovely, genuine moment”.

— RàChiDovitCh (@RaCh_glm) February 24, 2019

Next, the Duke and Duchess visited Lycee Qualifant Grand Atlas to hear about their efforts in education.

They received a very warm welcome.

The Duke and Duchess observed a class practicing English lessons.

The couple very much enjoyed watching students playing football.

They posed for photos.

Finally, at another Education For All boarding house in Asni, Harry invested founder Michael McHugo with his MBE. He was awarded for his work in education and gender equality in the New Years honours list. Harry said: “It is with great pleasure that on Her Majesty’s behalf, I present you with the badge of honour. May I congratulate you on all the work you have done to improve gender equality.” Meghan changed into a white blouse and heels for the investiture.

The Duchess selected a smart casual look for the engagements in Asni.

The Duchess sported the Alice + Olivia Simpson Collarless Blazer (with many thanks to Meghan’s Fashion). The ‘sapphire blue’ piece features rolled cuffs, a front hook closure and a sharp tailored fit. It’s available for £395 in sizes 0-12 on the Alice + Olivia website.

Meghan teamed the blazer with the $68 Artizia Wilfred Diamond Mosaic Scarf  in Birch/Grey (with thanks to Duchess Data).

The Duchess wore her $120 Birdies Starling slippers. She’s had them in her closet for several years.

It was very interesting to see Meghan accessorise with the Boh Runga earrings Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave her in New Zealand. The pair got along brilliantly during the tour and last month PM Ardern visited the Duchess at Kensington Palace. The earrings feature the native Miromiro feather, reworked into a kiss motif. In Māori mythology the Miromiro feather was a magic token of devotion that would bring loved ones back to you. They are described as a gift for “The sister with the brave and bold streak”.

The eagle-eyed Elizabeth from Meghan’s Fashion identified Meghan’s sunglasses as the Illesteva York Sunglasses.

The couple will attend a reception at the Ambassadors’ residence this evening.

**This post will be updated as the day progresses**

Source: http://madaboutmeghan.blogspot.com/2019/02/first-look-harry-and-meghan-visit.html

[drivingidearu]

Exit without entrance

Written in 2017

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1997, I visited London as a tourist. It must be admitted that from the very first minutes of acquaintance with this country it produced the impression of a very different world - not how England had been imagined for fifteen years spent studying its language, literature, and culture first in school, and then in two institutes. From the Soviet and post-Soviet far away, UK seemed to be such an illustration to the Dickens` books - a country frozen in self-contemplation, constantly rethinking its history, following which English became the main and only universally recognized international language. However, having taught the whole world to speak their own language, the English were not in a hurry to adopt from the world rules almost universally acting in it. That's why the first cultural shock for a tourist coming from Moscow was the fact that the bus that transported the group from Heathrow Airport to London suddenly went on the left side of the road.

This test was not for the faint-hearted since on the first kilometers it seemed that the luxury bus that had gone "against all rules" would now crash if not into an oncoming car, then into some bump. Surprisingly, the movement on the left side did not lead then to any accidents and troubles, and soon a group of Russian tourists with curiosity examined the houses and subway stations which were crawling outside the windows. All this architecture was so different from the usual Moscow building that it almost seemed as if it was nothing more than a theatrical scenery, and soon, when they finally run out, a "real world" will open around with the usual huge houses and wide streets. However, this expectation was not to come true, and soon the tourists, having gone to their hotels, have been already filling in the arrival cards on the couches at the reception desks.

The next, even more, powerful than the left-hand traffic, a shock, was the first walk along central London street. The plane came there in the middle of the day, and so the working afternoon was at its height, when white clerks sat in their offices, immersed in computers and documents. That's why there was a strong feeling that the plane was off course and instead of London brought everyone to some kind of Arab or Asian country. All the streets were filled with people of absolutely non-European origin and not even in European dress. A few passers-by, wrapped in something like white sheets, proudly carried the real turbans on their heads. As well as it is necessary to Indians, they were silent and looked somewhere ahead, and most likely not on street, but somewhere to meditative eternity. Nearby, groups of noisy, low men, reminiscent of Pakistanis or Afghans, scurried about. They roughly discussed something, and it can not be said that their speech was like English. Arabs, Indians, Asians, often dressed in their national dress and speaking their native languages - that's who made up the majority of passers-by in the Paddington station area at the very beginning of July 1997. At the same time, there were so many of them on the streets that even the white-faced passers-by appeared in the crowd almost like tourists, just as decided to visit this mysterious eastern country.

The very next day, this observation was reinforced by a young Arab who was distributing some flyers on the same patch. Trying to take from him one, I called the unbelievable surprise of the guy. It turned out that they were written in Arabic script, that is, they were originally intended only for Arabs, which, it is likely, he expected to meet on the street in large numbers. "You read?" - he asked me with a bewildered grimace, obviously not an Arab, and showed that the yellow leaflet was covered with mysterious wavy-curly letters. Naturally, I could not read them and refused to take the flyer. Only in the evening after the working shift in the central streets appeared "white", as they would be called in America, unexpectedly turned out to be in London a separate ethnic group, and yet not the fact that the most numerous one. Wearing business suits, they were hurrying with their suitcases in their hands on the subway, to the shops, home or somewhere else - that is, they were clearly distinguished by their vanity and disunity from the not in a hurry at all Hindus and the Pakistanis who spoke loudly in large groups.

Already at that time, a feeling arose that it were visitors from far-away southern countries who were dark-skinned passers-by in exotic outfits who made up the majority in this country, for some reason considered European and soaked with European culture. It turned out that in the large Garfunkel`s Restaurant on the corner near Paddington at the checkout near the scales where it was necessary to set up a plate with dishes gathered together on a buffet, an Asian woman stood, for some reason conditionally nicknamed by me as "Vietnamese", although she could be a Chinese woman, and a Korean, and a Mongolian, and the daughter of any other Asian country. Alive, mobile, greedy and at the same time cheerful, she never missed the opportunity to poke fun at the client, she did not resemble the cold and unsociable Englishwomen.

"You took everything!", she exclaimed with surprise and discontent, when on the second day of staying in this strange city I, having already studied the way of service in her restaurant, filled the plate with herring, salads, meat, crabs, and potatoes. In response to my objection that everything was done according to the rules of this restaurant, the little "Vietnamese" laughed and, remembering my visit the previous day, asked "Large Sprunklist?" - referring to the bank of fizzy drink, by color and taste reminiscent of Fanta. It was I who chose it on the previous visit, not finding in the list of the proposed beverages one or almost none of the names familiar to the European.

"Vietnamese" fed tasty, but a little expensive, stripping for dinner from eight to ten pounds, so I did not go to her restaurant anymore, but looked in a small cozy place nearby, just as suggested to the guest himself to fill the plate with the dishes of the buffet to your taste and then pay for the whole portion. Here above all, a swarthy middle-aged Indian man reigned, who, despite a serious and even gloomy look, took for a full plate of meat and some completely unfamiliar dishes just over two pounds. His food was cheap, tasty, but ruthlessly spicy, and only sitting down at the table I found out that the red pepper was generously sprinkled over meatballs, cutlets, and something like potatoes, and in general over everything I collected there in large quantities. After sitting in his small dining room for about two hours and eating everything, I involuntarily plunged in his silent society into a state resembling meditation, clearly felt in the cramped atmosphere of the hall, with almost total absence of other visitors, and now the world outside the windows seemed not to be some cheerful Vietnamese Holiday, but stream of Indian life focused on something. Thanking him for a delicious dinner and going out "to London," for a long time I felt like a yogi sitting on a lotus and staring at one point.

That is why a long time ago this country, in the center of the capital of which it was possible to visit first one Asian world, and then another one next to it, had had already little in common with Europe. Not surprisingly, in mid-March 2017, almost twenty years after that trip, the upper house of the British Parliament authorized the Prime Minister to begin withdrawing from the European Union. The bill was approved almost with a threefold preponderance of votes - 274 against 118. The Lords did not introduce amendments rejected by the House of Commons. The government opposed the amendments, and the chance of obtaining their approval was negligible. By and large, Great Britain was not in Europe, as it had been living for too long in its isolated island cultural and historical environment.

The fact that in London hotel they ask in the morning what kind of breakfast to serve - British or Continental - best of all referendums and bureaucratic decisions suggests that England has never felt like part of the "continent," that is, Europe, and preferred to live in its own way. It is unlikely that in its streets there will be fewer dark-skinned visitors - it has been colonizing the rest of the world for too long and let immigrants from all over the world come to British territory, so it is hard to believe that one of the reasons for parting with the EU is fatigue from labor and other migrants. England leaves the EU because it is foreign to it, and it is alien to it, so it is difficult physically, culturally and mentally to this geographically isolated state with strong island thinking to share political and economic space with EU.

Posted first on Media collection “Driving Idea“ at http://www.drivingidea.ru/GP/GP-2.html

[spicynbachili2]

On Jamal Khashoggi Killing, Trump Administration Sends Mixed Signals

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, confronted with additional proof of a cover-up within the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, veered on Monday between defending the worth of its alliance with Saudi Arabia and urgent the Saudi authorities for solutions.

The White Home despatched the director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel, to Istanbul to assist the Turkish authorities with its investigation into the killing, in response to an official. However in Riyadh, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held a wide-ranging assembly with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who’s suspected of enjoying a task within the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.

Mr. Mnuchin, who canceled his attendance at this week’s Saudi funding convention within the wake of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing on the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, traded views with Prince Mohammed on financial ties and counterterrorism initiatives, in addition to on the investigation into Mr. Khashoggi’s demise, in response to a Treasury Division spokesman.

There are additionally contemporary doubts in regards to the Saudi authorities’s declare that Mr. Khashoggi was strangled unintentionally after he bought right into a fist combat with 15 Saudi operatives, with video of a physique double surfacing on Monday. A Saudi operative donned Mr. Khashoggi’s garments after he was killed and left the constructing to create a deceptive path of proof, surveillance pictures leaked by Turkey present.

[The Turkish president says a team involved in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing included Saudi generals.]

“I am not satisfied with what I have heard,” President Trump said to reporters before flying to a rally in Texas.

But Mr. Trump reiterated the value of the $110 billion arms deal he announced with Saudi Arabia, as well as other American business ties with the kingdom. “I do not want to lose the investment being made in our country,” he said.

The meeting between Mr. Mnuchin and Prince Mohammed was unplanned and came at the request of the Saudis, according to a person familiar with the situation. But it added to the portrait of a White House eager to move on from the killing of Mr. Khashoggi to a more routine relationship with its key Arab ally.

The timing, as well as the unusual decision to send Ms. Haspel to Turkey, underscored that the furor was far from over. On Tuesday, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has promised to give a full, unvarnished account of what happened to Mr. Khashoggi.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who has been the key contact with Prince Mohammed, likened the doubts about the truthfulness of Saudi officials to the run-of-the-mill perfidy that the White House deals with in Washington.

“Every day we deal with people who are trying to deceive us in different ways,” Mr. Kushner said during a CNN forum in Manhattan. “But our job is to see through it, but also to stay focused on what’s best for the American people.”

The administration has shifted its tone repeatedly on the Saudi response to the killing. But Mr. Trump has stopped short of pointing a finger at Prince Mohammed and has steadfastly defended the 33-year-old heir to the Saudi throne, whom the White House has cultivated and views as a critical partner in its efforts to isolate Iran.

Mr. Mnuchin was the first senior American official to meet face to face with Prince Mohammed since the Saudi government confirmed on Friday that Mr. Khashoggi was killed. It had earlier insisted that he left the consulate and disappeared afterward.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry lost no time in publicizing the session, posting a photograph on Twitter of Mr. Mnuchin sitting across from Prince Mohammed in an opulent reception room, listening while his host made a point.

Prince Mohammed stressed “the importance of Saudi-US strategic partnership, where it holds an important role in the future in line with the Kingdom’s #Vision2030,” the tweet said, referring to the prince’s ambitious program to modernize his kingdom.

A Treasury Department spokesman said the meeting was focused on combating terrorist financing and corralling Iran’s influences in the region and that the two men discussed the Khashoggi investigation.

Mr. Mnuchin withdrew from speaking at an investor conference taking place this week in Riyadh because of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Khashoggi’s death but said he still planned to meet with Saudi officials to discuss economic issues and joint efforts to stop illicit terrorist financing.

In an interview on Sunday in Jerusalem, Mr. Mnuchin said that Saudi Arabia needed to do more to demonstrate that Mr. Khashoggi’s killing was unintentional. But he defended his decision to travel to Riyadh and meet with Saudi officials, saying his trip was aimed at reinforcing ties at a critical moment, as the United States tries to ratchet up pressure on Iran.

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who over the weekend said he believed Prince Mohammed was culpable in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, criticized Mr. Mnuchin’s decision to meet with the royal.

“If their talks were about financial matters, I certainly think they should not have gone forward,” Mr. Schiff said in a telephone interview. “If they were about counterterrorism issues, it’s hard to believe how fruitful those could be.”

The meeting occurred hours after Mr. Kushner said the White House was still engaged in “fact-finding” into Mr. Khashoggi’s death but that it had its “eyes wide open” as the investigations into his killing continued.

The grounds for skepticism only seemed to deepen on Monday. The revelation that the Saudis deployed a body double added to the multiplying doubts about the Saudi explanation of how Mr. Khashoggi, 59, died.

It suggested there was a premeditated plan to make Mr. Khashoggi disappear, through death or abduction, and to cover it up — possibly contradicting the Saudi insistence that his killing was the accidental result of an altercation.

Mr. Trump, in an interview with USA Today, called it “a plot gone awry.”

On Monday, CNN showed images, leaked by the Turkish authorities, that confirmed the physique double strolling round Istanbul, apparently sporting Mr. Khashoggi’s garments. The person was recognized as Mustafa al-Madani, described in his now-deleted Fb profile as a Saudi authorities engineer.

Mr. Kushner, a key adviser on the Mideast peace course of, has developed a powerful relationship with the Saudi crown prince.

He has talked to Prince Mohammed a number of instances within the final week, and has come beneath criticism amid reviews that he has suggested Mr. Trump to attend earlier than leaping to conclusions about Mr. Khashoggi’s demise.

“I believe that, once more, the president is targeted on what’s good for America, what are strategic pursuits,” Mr. Kushner mentioned. “The place can we share pursuits with different international locations — let’s work towards these.”

He made the remarks in his first televised interview because the 2016 election, carried out by the political activist Van Jones, on the “Citizen by CNN” discussion board in Manhattan.

Mr. Kushner mentioned that the president was aware of getting solutions, however he famous that the Saudis have been a strategic ally of the USA.

When Mr. Jones famous that even Mr. Trump had mentioned that there had been “deception” and “lies” from the Saudis in relation to the Khashoggi case, Mr. Kushner provided a extra muted response.

“We’re getting information in from a number of locations,” he mentioned. “As soon as these information are available, the secretary of state will work with our nationwide safety group to assist us decide what we need to imagine.”

When Mr. Kushner was requested what recommendation he personally had given the crown prince, he replied, “To be clear.” He added, “The world is watching.”

Dismissing criticism of his ties to the crown prince, Mr. Kushner mentioned he didn’t take note of his critics. At one other level, he mentioned he heeded criticism provided that it was from somebody he revered.

from SpicyNBAChili.com https://www.spicynbachili.com/on-jamal-khashoggi-killing-trump-administration-sends-mixed-signals/

[norafinds]

ATWWV - Laila Shalimar

Third post of the Around The World With Vintage and I cannot be more excited for you to read this. Today I would like to introduce you to the Australian-Pakistani pin up Midcentury Mermaid aka Laila Shalimar. I was really excited when I discovered Laila as she is definitely the perfect person to feature on this series. I started this series because I wanted to talk to vintage wearers about culture, nationalities, and identities. Laila has the most fascinating stories growing up in Pakistan and moving to Australia at 16. I thought it would great for me (and you) to learn about Pakistan and its history. I asked her about the Westernised Pakistan that I've seen in vintage photographs as well as her views on being a Desi woman and a pin up girl.

Hi Laila, tell us a little bit about you!

My name is Laila Shalimar. I am a twenty something tattooed pinup of colour from Western Australia. When I am not working one of my two reception jobs, you can find me in the library of Edith Cowan University where I am a student of Criminology and Counter Terrorism. I am passionate about writing and the art of storytelling. Being able to speak 2 languages other than English, linguistics have always been a source of comfort for me. The written word has been a source of solace during some of the most isolating and vulnerable moments of my life and I am grateful to be able to share my experiences with others through the power of writing. I have had some of my pieces published by magazines such as Adore Pinup Magazine, Retro Vintage Review, Damsel Magazine, Dircksey and I hope to continue writing for as long as my mind will let me tell stories.

What is your racial and cultural background? 

Because I don’t have an Anglo Australian accent, I often get people asking me where I am “really from”. This is usually after a long and embarrassing guessing game where every country but Pakistan is thrown in as a possibility. I dread these kind of interactions  because it makes me feel like my accent, name and appearance prevents me from being considered “Aussie”  and  also because I never know how people will react to my “identity story”. For one thing, I never know whether they are asking about my ethnicity/race or where I have lived before I moved to Australia. First and foremost, I consider myself a Desi Australian. I was born in Peshawar, Pakistan to a Muslim Pashtun father and a mother of mixed Indo European ancestry. I grew up between Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar. I have also lived in the UK and briefly in some parts of Europe. Because I went to an English Grammar school for most my life and was practically raised on American cable, I have a very American sounding accent. I moved to Australia with my family in 2013 and have lived here ever since. Because I was sixteen at the time, I never managed to pick up an Australian accent.

People make the mistake of assuming that “Pakistani” is a racial or ethnic identity when it is merely a nationality. Pakistan is a small country that only came into existence in 1947. Prior to that it was part of the Indian subcontinent and fell under the British Raj. My father’s generation was the first generation to be born in Pakistan. My grandparents were born in British India as it was called. Pakistan hosts a multitude of races and ethnicities much like Australia does and many of us refer to ourselves as Desi or “of the motherland/subcontinent”. I like to think of myself as a Desi Australian because I have a very mixed ethnic background, most of which can be traced to the Indian subcontinent. I value all these beautiful aspects of my ethnicity and often wonder what stories lie hidden in my genes. In my appearance I see a kaleidoscope- as time progresses and my features change, I cannot help but wonder about the ancestors in the obscured and missing branches of my family tree.

First prime minister and first lady of Pakistan during their US visit. The two have been credited for the Pakistan Movement that gained the country its independence. Photo by unknown, provided by US Department of State as part of the album "Visit of his Excellency Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, to the United States of America, May 3 to May 26, 1950." (Missouri Digital Heritage) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Tell us about your family and your childhood

My mother was 25 when she had me. She had only been married to my father for a year and they lived in a teeny tiny little studio apartment in Peshawar in a “not so desirable” part of town. My mother said she spent a lot of her pregnancy reading and eating tropical fruits. The day I made my entry into the world, she had been reading Valley of the Dolls and eating pomegranates and rock melon. It was a scorching 39 degrees and they had no air conditioning in their apartment. I was born on the 12th of June 1987, in the middle of a heatwave, in a small maternity home at 3pm in the afternoon. My parents did not know they were expecting a daughter and in a society that valued a male heir so strongly, my birth went largely unnoticed outside my immediate family. I was given an old Persian name that I wish I could share with your readership because it has the most delicate sound when pronounced correctly. I was raised in a household full of books, laughter, kitchen table science experiments and the concept of a Ubiquitous but loving God who didn’t care whether I prayed to him in the customary Arabic or my mother tongue of Pashto. I was raised to ask questions and my parent’s ensured they always answered truthfully and to the best of their knowledge.

I was soon joined by two siblings, a brother and a sister and we lived a pretty happy and carefree life amidst the political turmoil of Pakistan’s 90s. I grew up worshipping The Spice Girls, swooning over Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, having slumber parties with my schoolmates where we watched movies like Clueless and Never been kissed over and over while painting our toenails bright blue. Summer vacations were spent finding inventive ways to stay cool during ”load-shedding” (where an entire suburb loses power for a week at a time), trips to the British Council Library in Islamabad to borrow books like Matilda and the BFG, eating gola ghanda (local shaved ices)  with the other neighbourhood kids and going on long road trips to see our grandparents in Peshawar. And in the background of my childhood and early teens governments were sworn in, governments were kicked out. Each party made promises it would not or could not keep before being replaced in some kind of political ousting. Sometimes there would be Union strikes that would result in school being called off for a few days and we would grow bored and restless indoors waiting to get back to our schoolyard and our friends. Pakistan in the 90s was the best bits of the west and the east tossed together like Chaat Masala on fries, coca cola with Naan Kebab, and Friday prayers after the Power Puff Girls marathon. Had I known what was to follow in the years to come, I would have committed more to memory.

I feel like my life can neatly be divided into two parts: pre and post 9/11. The collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11th and the so called “War on Terror” that followed had a major impact on the world I lived in. While Pakistan has by no means known peace and tranquility in its short existence thanks to our politicians, our military and our religious right, this time the instability was coming from politicians in an office more than 12,000 KM away from us. In war, they say, it is children that become the first casualties of damage physical and spiritual. The thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life are the tired eyes of small Afghan children attempting to sleep in strange doorsteps on freezing winter mornings. It was October when they first started piling into Peshawar, children no older than 5 or 6 unaccompanied by parents in the back of trucks huddling together like chickens roosting. The local hospitals were full of children with injuries from shellings, shrapnel embedded in limbs that often needed amputation, sometimes with very little anaesthetic. Often times the littlest ones would perish due to chest infections left unattended. Our country did not have the finances nor the infrastructure to take on the sheer volume of refugees that were making their way across the Khyber Pass once more. Aid arrived from the UN at a snail’s pace and the US happily wrote off these people as “collateral damage” forgetting that they were the children and family of the men and women who fought  the Russians for them in the 80s.

My mother and grandmothers helped where they could by organising “khairaat” (charity food) but there was never enough food to stave off hunger just as there would never be enough comfort for children displaced in the middle of the night. I remember hearing a doctor ask an Afghan boy of maybe six what he wanted to be when he grew up in an attempt to distract him from the tetanus shot he was about to receive. The boy with big fat tears rolling down his cheek replied that he wanted to be “a grown up” and look after his mother who was still “back home”. Things like these hurt to think about even a decade later.  I was 15 then but when I look back I feel as if I was watching the world with old eyes. I feel younger now than I did then somehow. Perhaps it is because I am now watching the same things happen from far away, on a television set that I have the luxury to switch off. Some nights I think about that boy and his mother, and other children I saw on my way to my grandmother’s house or our in Baara Market. I can switch off the Tv but the human mind refuses to co operate in the same way.  

How did your family decide to move to Australia? How was the experience like for all of you?

Shortly after my 15th birthday I fell into a deep and unshakeable depression. It manifested itself in very violent and angry behaviour. I got into numerous physical fights, refused to hand in assignments and spent most of my time in the school library reading instead of attending classes. I remember thinking of the futility of education when it was likely that we would all end up dead at the flick of a button. What was the point of calculus, social studies and human biology in the event of an all out World War like they kept talking about on TV when I went home every evening sulking, writing terribly morose journal entries in my diary and crying myself to sleep. I could not eat because of constant anxiety and  made several attempts to end my own life when it got out of hand. My parent’s sensed that the environment I was in was causing me great distress. They were also extremely worried about the political circumstances in Pakistan and what it meant for my father’s job and our futures. My parents had applied for American, Canadian, Dutch  and Australian visas. The interview processes were often followed by months of silence and then rejection letters. In January 2003, I was 6 months shy of my 16th birthday, due to sit my O level exams and had completely stopped attending school altogether. My parents were frantic. What future was there for a woman in Pakistan especially if she didn’t even have a basic high school graduation? They tried over and over to talk to me about my poor performance at school and my lacklustre behaviour at home but to no avail. I was not living, merely surviving day to day, waiting for something to drop on my house or hurt someone I loved. It was an awful time for me.

On the 11th of March 2004 at 2pm in the afternoon, I was at home with my father who was reading a newspaper in the living room. I remember every detail of this day because that was the day the mailman brought the one envelope that changed the rest of my life. I cannot remember if it was from the Australian Embassy or whether it was from my father’s colleague who had ties to the embassy but I remember him opening the envelope, reading its contents several times before looking like he was going to throw up. “As of tomorrow” he said “I want you to start considering options for your future. Australia is a very competitive country with very intelligent people and you’re going to need to be on top of your class to go to their Universities”. That was it. We were moving to Australia. My family had been granted a 5 year multiple visa and with it came the option of residency and citizenship. The only catch was that we had to be in Australia by the 5th of May. We had little under 2 months to move across continents and start a new life.

With a suitcase and a backpack each, we said our final goodbyes to family and relatives at Peshawar Airport. One of my father’s work colleagues accompanied us to the terminal gates. They had been friends since college. I heard from my mother several years later that he had been assassinated. Rumour was that someone from a rival political party had decided to take a hit out on him to ensure a district election win. The more I think about things like this, the more I take comfort in the workings of Australia’s political and legal system. It is by no means perfect but the safety it offers those of us who are lucky enough to yield it is comforting.

Does your love of vintage stem from your cultural background?

There is a Pashtun saying that our home comes alive in our stories. That is to say our histories and therefore our cultural identity provides us with a sense of belonging or home and this really resonates with me. My family moved to Australia on such short notice, with such little time on our hands that there was never any closure. We barely brought anything with us to the new country to remember it by. I never got to say goodbye properly to my life, my family or friends. I was under the impression that our move was temporary and that I would one day return to my life as I left it. Nearly 14 years have passed and I have not visited “home”. I have lost grandparents, schoolmates, and relatives. Shops, restaurants and parks I went to as a child have been reduced to rubble or ruin. People have moved on. The Pakistan I felt safe in, the Pakistan I grew up in is like a little figurine in a snow globe, a place frozen in time, in a little bubble of reminiscence. There is no reclaiming it nor will I be able to return to those carefree and happy times.

We have seen numerous articles about how Westernised Pakistan was before the 1980s. Is there a lot of vintage now in Pakistan? Do people hold on to those memorabilia or were they destroyed?

One of my favourite pieces of furniture back home was a chest of drawers that my mother had as a teenager in the 1970s. The drawers were part of an old deco set that my maternal grandparents were given as a wedding gift. In the topmost drawer, underneath some very “groovy” 60s lining paper was a little peace symbol, “Janis Joplin forever” and my mother’s initials. When I inherited the bedroom set at 13, my mother showed me this little bit of graffiti and said “When I was a teenager, i wrote this in the drawer to piss your grandmother off”. I was equal parts mesmerised and weirded out. My mother was once a teenager who liked scribbling on furniture to make her mother angry. When I recounted this story in my year 12 drama class, my classmates attempted to discredit me. In their minds it was impossible to believe that a teenager that lived in 1970s Pakistan had ever heard of Janis Joplin. The Pakistan they had heard of in pre social media 2003 was the one overrun by the Taliban and women in blue burqas. It was hard for them to comprehend the Pakistan my parents grew up in.

My father fondly recounts stories of his American Hippie friends whom he met in Peshawar restaurants en route to Kabul. They had been traveling from India and wanted to visit the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Pakistan was an important destination on what was called the "hippie trail" – an overland route taken by young western backpackers between 1967 and 1979 that ran from Turkey, across Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, usually ending in Nepal. Numerous low-budget hotels and a thriving tourist industry sprang up (in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi) to accommodate these travellers. The hippie trail began eroding after the 1977 military coup in Pakistan, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the beginning of the Afghan civil war (in 1979). 

My father delighted in telling me stories of discos and cinemas in Kabul and how he and his cousins would go on weekend trips to buy the latest in American style fashion from the markets there. I have seen photos of my mum in smart embroidered Kaftans wearing ridiculously wide bell bottom trousers topped off with big round sunnies. Like many teenage Pakistani girls of her time, my mother’s fashion choices were influenced by the 1974 box-office hit Miss Hippie. A cautionary tale of sorts, the film depicted the "effect hippie lifestyle and fashion were having on Pakistani youth" but ironically this movie seemed to draw more and more youngsters into the hippie fashion scene. When my parents and my relatives talk on skype its not long before the conversation turns to  “the good ol days in Pakistan” and if I had not seen the photos with my own eyes I too would have thought they were lying to me. Live music, great food, lots of booze and dancing were the hallmarks of the scene in cities like Karachi and Lahore. Sadly, a lot of the amazing venues and attractions they spoke so lovingly about were closed down by Military Dictator Zia Ul Haq’s government in April 1977. 

[Hippie trail into Aghanistan] - By Karte: NordNordWest, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link

Is there any Pakistani vintage piece that you covet?

There are 3 pieces that I hold very dear to me that I managed to bring with me from Pakistan. The first is a pair of gold earrings my grandmother wore at one of her wedding events in the 50s. My mother wore the very same earrings to her engagement party in 1985 and I wore them as part of my day wear for Miss Pinup Australia 2016. The second is a pair of italian leather shoes my grandmother pestered my grandfather to buy her from Bata Shoes in the late 60s. The number of times they have been cobbled and resoled is incredible! I still wear them in photo shoots from time to time. The last and most important piece to me is my grandmothers rosary. My grandfather had bought her the rosary when he went to Mecca to pay pilgrimage in the early 60s. They are made of a strange kind of early plastic that glows in the dark. My grandmother would constantly be clicking the beads of the rosary, passing each through her nimble calloused fingers, reading short passages from the Quraan. She was hardly ever seen without them. The last time I saw her, she was sitting in front of an old gas heater all misty eyed with her rosary in her hand. When I sat  next to her tying my shoelaces, she looked at me and said “i want you to borrow this rosary from me for now but remember to bring it back  with you from Australia”.  My grandmother passed away two years ago. The rosary has been on my night stand for 14 years, i never got a chance to return it to her.  

Are there many Desi women in the vintage scene? 

I think there have always been a number of us interested in vintage in some form of the other but the problem has always been exposure to our history and one another. With the advent of social media platforms such as instagram and facebook, we have started becoming more visible. It has become easy to find treasure troves of images, articles and videos from the bygone days showcasing our unique cultures.  I know of several vintage loving Desi women that I met on autonomous Women of Colour spaces but wouldn’t have otherwise met because they are self conscious of how they look in vintage. The fact that the presentation of vintage culture and pin up culture is so euro and anglocentric makes a lot of pinups of colour, particularly darker skinned and more ethnic looking pinups feel too self conscious to put themselves out on social media. They often feel  like they are “doing it wrong”. Our features and even our vintage ethnic fashion don’t readily fall into the already pre ordained and celebrated vintage or pinup look. An example of this is how coveted pale and almost snowy white skin is in the vintage community. Darker skinned Desi women are already maligned in their own communities for their complexions, and yet are indirectly made to feel unwanted and unattractive in their beloved subculture as well.   It is harder for Desi pinups to gain visibility and popularity on social media because history has never placed us in a position to be thought about or considered  desirable or conventionally attractive.

Do you find it difficult to be a Desi woman in the pin up industry? Do you think people are surprised that Desi women can and want to be sexy?

I remember when I raised the issue of the lack of diversity in Pinup and vintage publications in Adore Pinup Magazine last year. There was a slough of accusations thrown at myself and the magazine. I was labelled everything from a “reverse racist”, to “a toxic negative nancy”, to a “jealous and ungrateful pinup” all for that one article that discussed the need for change in the Australian vintage scene and the global pinup industry. Apparently, if you are a Desi woman, or a woman of colour, you are expected to be grateful for the one or two token pinups of colour a magazine publishes a year. God forbid you raise hell over the lack of diversity you see in the vintage scene or if you attempt to claim an autonomous online space to celebrate women like yourself. I was lucky that the editor of Adore Pinup Magazine, Brianna Blackheart, addressed the issues I discussed in the article publicly on all of Adore’s social media platforms and backed me up in my arguments. I don’t think I would have continued writing about these issues without her support so early on in my writing.

As far as creating Desi and PoC representation in vintage and pinup goes, the conservative desis in the community feel that I am too racy, too vocal and too sexual to “appropriately” represent Desi femininity while  the conservative non PoC feel that I am trying to create a “racial divide” by working on projects such as Pinups of Colour that exclusively celebrates racially and ethnically diverse pinup communities. There is no winning! I feel like people want women like myself to pick a very narrow and carefully constructed box and sit in it very quietly. Every now and then a nice whitewashed hand will come in and either grab my ethnic outfits to be appropriated and if I am VERY good and quiet I will be paraded around like a ventriloquist's dummy parroting phrases that  implying (non existent) diversity in the scene. I am sorry but  I cannot do that. I refuse to shrink myself to make other people feel comfortable by helping to maintain a status quo and it is just as well as I find it impossible to follow guidelines in order to fit into these boxes anyway!

Staff and students of St Patrick's Teachers' Training College, Karachi, 1956. You can see that for some time during the 1950s-1970s Pakistan strongly adopted Western fashion and culture - Source - Wikimedia Commons.

How did you start wearing vintage? Have you been back since? How do you think you will be accepted there with your tattoos and your look?

I will be honest, I spent my teenage years riddled with insecurity and self doubt because I was one of the few ethnic Desi girls in my predominantly white high school. I stuck out like a sore thumb and at a time where there was a growing mistrust of people from Muslim countries, I was either isolated by my peers or ostracised by them. Vintage clothing gave me a way to feel comfortable with a body that at times felt like a battlefield. As a new migrant whose parents didn’t have much of an income, op-shopping was equal parts necessity and thrill! Much like vintage fashion, tattoos have helped me embrace my body.  I wouldn’t say all my tattoos have stories behind them but a vast majority of them were inspired by moments in my life where I felt something move me to my core. I view my body as a passport and see each tattoo as a little stamp for moments in my journey, from my darkest moments to the happier ones. 

Tattooing in the Indian subcontinent is not unheard of but it isn’t as common as it is in Australia. This is partly due to conservative culture in countries with little separation between church and state. Tribal facial tattoos were common among the early pagan Pashtuns, however, my ethnic group gave up these customs upon the advent of Arab Islam in the 12th century. While some tribal women in Pakistan’s far north still practise stick and poke facial tattooing, a manual method involving charcoal pigment being inserted into the skin using hand fashioned bone needles, tattooing as a Pashtun art form is almost non existent these days. When our tattooing history is brought up in conversations nowadays, our people refer to that period in our history as the “dark ages” and dismiss the practise as uncivilised. As I haven’t visited Pakistan since starting my body modification journey, I really don’t know how people would react to my body art or style of dressing. I suppose it would be no different to how tattooed ladies got treated in the 20s and 30s in America or Australia!

 What is the one thing you want people to know about you? 

I am one of those people who is passionate about social justice issues, particularly issues pertaining to the representation and rights of people of colour. Sometimes this passion is severely misread as spiteful. I am angry. Of course! How can you not be angry in this day and age when women, especially women of colour, receive the short end of the stick? My anger derives from hurt, from isolation and from the yearning to have my identity recognised as valid. It is frustrating to be denied representation in the subcultures I love. It is disappointing to be overlooked on the basis of appearance. It is heartbreaking to be denied a space in my own ethnic and cultural group because I defy convention. I am angry but I am not doing it to be spiteful. I am doing it because nice women seldom make history. There are some people who have the luxury to stand by idly and watch the world plummet into darkness. I do not have this luxury. It’s not in my nature nor is it in my favour to do so. Besides, I would much rather be a cactus than a wallflower any day.

[shyearthquakedaze]

The Swedish welfare state has often been praised by the left in the United States. After the migration crisis of 2015, however, when Sweden was flooded by Syrian refugee claimants, Sweden is now facing a welfare crisis that threatens the entire Swedish welfare state model.

Sweden had 9.7 million inhabitants in 2015, before it received 162,000 asylum seekers. 70% of those asylum seekers came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. 70% of those asylum seekers were also men. The migration crisis created an unsustainable financial and social situation that caused the Swedish political establishment to rethink its stance on asylum migration, which, until then, had been extremely liberal.

Asylum migration has continued, nevertheless. Between 2016 and 2018, more than 70,000 additional migrants have applied for asylum in Sweden, and more than 105,000 asylum migrants have been granted asylum.

There is a demographic impact from migration that affects Sweden's national and cultural identity, as well as the crushing economic impact on Sweden's welfare state.

The demographic impact can be seen in cities such as Sweden's third-largest city, Malmö, where people of foreign background (foreign-born or both parents born abroad) have increased from 31.9% of the population in 2002, to 45.9% of the population in 2018. There are already three Swedish municipalities where the majority of the population has a foreign background: Botkyrka, Södertälje and Haparanda. The question then becomes how to integrate foreigners if the majority of the people in a city are of a foreign background. 51% of the elementary school students in Malmö are either foreign born or both of whose parents are foreign born. Within a generation, Sweden's third-largest city will have a population in which the majority of people are of foreign background. How will integrating immigrants take place then, and which group will be integrated into which?

Integrating migrants into Swedish society has been a failure, a situation that both experts and politicians agree on. In March 2018, 58% of registered unemployed persons were born outside Sweden, even though the group's share of the population is only 23%. In 2018, the unemployment rate for foreign-born Swedes was 15.4%, while unemployment for Swedes born in Sweden was 3.8%.

The EBO Law (Lagen om eget boende - "Independent Living Act") permits asylum seekers to settle anywhere in the country. Migrants often settle in areas where other migrants already have settled, partly because of the low housing prices in those areas and partly because it is easier for migrants to network there. This process both reinforces segregation and creates migrant enclaves in Sweden.

A large influx of migrants combined with a failed integration policy has created cultural consequences in which Swedish culture is both undergoing rapid change and having its identity challenged. In many areas where migrants are in the majority, there is no way to maintain Swedish culture because the population has a culture distinctly different from Sweden's culture. This results, among other things, in changes in the language and in which holidays are publicly observed.

Several established Swedish media outlets published articles in June glorifying Eid-al-fitr, the holiday that ends the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Well-known companies in Sweden, such as Arla Foods, ICA and COOP, published recipes on their websites for the holiday. Several voices have already suggested that Eid-al-fitr, a Muslim holiday, should be a national holiday in Sweden. These voices have come from the Social Democrats and the Church of Sweden, two institutions that have great influence in Swedish society. Even though Eid-al-fitr has not become a national holiday, yet, several municipalities choose to celebrate it.

As long as Sweden has existed as a nation, the bond to its ancestral neighbor, Finland, has been strong and Finnish has been the second most popular language here. In 2018, the linguist Mikael Parkvall noted that Arabic is now the second most popular language in Sweden. At the same time, many children born in Sweden learn Swedish so poorly that they cannot speak it properly, because there is not enough Swedish spoken in some preschools and grade schools. This change is unfolding at a rapid pace.

It is not just Swedish society that will look radically different within a decade. The Swedish welfare state, which has been the hallmark of the Swedish state known around the world, is also changing or possibly even being phased out.

The calculations underpinning Sweden's welfare state are based on the assumption of a majority of adults employed full-time, who pay income tax to the state. What the state receives needs to be greater than what it pays out in the form of various welfare benefits and transfer payments. When a large number of people who receive welfare benefits cannot find employment or are not willing to work, there is a crisis. This is exactly what has happened in Sweden with its liberal immigration policy.

An example highlighted in Swedish media is Filipstad, a municipality with more than 10,000 inhabitants. There, the proportion of residents with a foreign background has increased from 8.5 % in 2002 to 22.7 % in 2018. Between 2012 and 2018, the domestic-born group decreased by 640 individuals, while the foreign-born group increased by 963. Those who move out of Filipstad are Swedish-born and of working age. At the same time, Filipstad's City Manager, Claes Hultgren, is concerned that the newly arrived migrants do not have the necessary skills to enter the labor market. The consequence for municipalities such as Filipstad, is that they then must make cutbacks in the welfare services that the municipality has a responsibility to supply.

Filipstad is not the only municipality to suffer from cutbacks. According to a report from the association Sweden's Municipalities and Regions (SKR), in 2023, there will be a deficit of 43 billion Swedish kronor (approximately $4.6 billion) in municipal and regional operations if costs increase in line with the population growth and the state does not add more resources than already planned.

The Social Democratic municipal commissioner in Strömsund, a Swedish municipality with 11,699 inhabitants, warned:

"All costs are borne by the municipalities. We have never had such low unemployment in the municipality among native-born, yet, we are on our knees, and the explanation is that we also never had such high unemployment among foreign-born. And they end up in welfare, which in practice is now, for many, life-long support."

Charlotta Mellander, Professor of Economics at Jönköping International Business School, noted the following about the municipalities' economic crisis:

"This is not something that happened overnight, but the municipalities' finances have been eroded for a long time. But something that has affected the situation is the refugee reception in 2015, where, from the beginning, the municipalities that received the most had poor conditions in terms of a labor market and integration. And that has made the situation even tougher."

At the beginning of this new decade, because of excessive migration and failed integration policies, Sweden faces radical cultural and economic changes that will fundamentally change the country.

There is ongoing Islamization in parts of Sweden and how much this Islamization will affect Swedish society is something that is influenced by the political decisions that will be made during the 2020s.

Will asylum immigration to Sweden from Muslim countries continue? Will Swedish authorities continue to support Islamic culture with tax funds? Will the immigrants adopt Swedish culture, or will the failed integration approach continue and the Swedes increasingly adopt the Islamic culture?

There are major conflicts between these two cultures, so the expansion of the Islamic culture in Sweden will doubtless create unrest of various kinds. Today, there are more contradictions between Islamic culture and Swedish culture than commonalities. Segregation is strong and mosques have been involved in scandals several times due to cultural conflicts between Islam and Swedish values.

The new decade will therefore be both unstable and decisive for Sweden, and contain major political, cultural and economic changes inescapably taking place.

Nima Gholam Ali Pour is policy advisor for the Sweden Democrats in the Swedish municipality of Malmö. He is author of the Swedish books "Därför är mångkultur förtryck" ("Why multiculturalism is oppression") and "Allah bestämmer inte i Sverige" ("Allah does not decide in Sweden").

[rightsinexile]

Opinion/Editorial

Why Hakeem al-Araibi matters

The following opinion piece was written by Themba Lewis, Secretary-General of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network. It was originally published by the Bangkok Post on 4 March 2019 and is reprinted here with permission.

Only recently, Thailand became the focus of global attention when a decision was taken to release Hakeem al-Araibi from administrative detention and allow his return to Australia. The case galvanised the world and challenged Thailand's relationship with Australia, Bahrain, Fifa, and international law. It captured front-page headlines, innervated human rights advocates, and ignited a ground-up movement across the world of international football.

Now, as the dust settles, it is time to take stock of the significance of the Araibi case, not only for the individual advocates and campaigners, but also for the greater protection of refugees in Thailand and across the region. Araibi's case is a canary-in-the-coalmine indicator of the effectiveness of our common commitment to ensure people are protected from persecution. It illuminates gaps and risks in our systems and challenges the "universality" of universal human rights.

While his case resolved without significant violation of international law -- a very real threat -- it did not do so due to respect for refugee rights or binding international legal commitments. Nor did it do so as a result of the Thai judicial system "being left to do it's work", as the Interior Ministry underscored as essential. It did so because the grounds for continuing to hold Araibi, tenuous in the first place, evaporated. It did so because the situation became internationally untenable and because the world was watching.

Only a few months ago, Araibi was a relatively unknown footballer with Pascoe Vale FC, a semi-professional Premier League team in Melbourne. He is also a recognised refugee. This means that he has fulfilled the rigorous international legal standards for determining that he, for his alleged role in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, would face grave risk if returned to Bahrain. The refugee recognition process is far from straightforward and requires extensive examination of the particulars of a claimant's case, analysis of circumstances in the country of origin, and scrutiny of the "credibility" of the asylum seeker. Very few applicants are able to satisfy the criteria.

Araibi is effectively Australian, but not fully. As a refugee he is essentially stateless. Australia offers him protection and residence in the country, but not the rights that come with citizenship. Simultaneously, he cannot be expected to maintain his links to the Bahraini state. He has no actionable citizenship. His only rights come from international refugee law, and refugee law is some of the most contested, complicated, and high-stakes international law in existence. It is also law that Thailand has not agreed to respect.

When Araibi arrived in Bangkok last November with his wife, he was immediately arrested and detained under the auspices of a Bahraini-issued Interpol "Red Notice", a document demanding his forcible return to Bahrain. Despite the notice being invalid -- refugees cannot be subject to extradition requests by a persecutory authority -- Thailand continued to detain him pending a formal extradition request from Bahrain. Legal justification for holding Araibi had evaporated, but his detention continued outside normal procedure. Thailand has no extradition agreement with Bahrain, and violated its own law by continuing to hold him.

The case was a stark contrast to that of Rahaf al-Qunun, a Saudi teenager who was recognised as a refugee within days of arrival in Thailand and resettled to Canada. Thai Immigration Bureau Commissioner Surachate Hakparn celebrated her case as a demonstration of Thai commitments to human rights processes. Meanwhile, Araibi remained detained as Thailand facilitated Bahrain's slow-moving extradition process.

Thailand, like many countries in the region, is not a signatory to international law protecting the rights of refugees, a fact often cited to explain ad hoc and inconsistent responses to refugees in the country. It does not legally recognise refugees, despite housing nearly 100,000 in camps along the Myanmar border. It is, however, beholden to the Convention Against Torture, which underscores the inviolable right to nonrefoulement: protection from return to an authority for which there are reasonable grounds to believe a person may be subject to torture or other inhumane and degrading treatment. This obligation is applicable to Hakeem.

The Bahraini human rights record is dismal. The US Department of State reports potential abuses including unlawful killings by security forces, torture of detainees and prisoners, harsh and potentially life-threatening conditions in detention, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of political dissidents. The record speaks for itself.

After Ms Qunun's case, the media became receptive to high-profile refugee cases in Thailand. Araibi's situation started gaining international traction. With this came the attention of the international football community. Fans in Australia and elsewhere began to unfurl "Free Hakeem" banners at matches, and Australian teams reconsidered invitations to play in Thailand. Protests began to happen at foreign consulates. Fifa announced its intention to act in line with standards of human rights, threatening sanctions and Thailand's bid to host the World Cup. Social media hashtags caught on. Legal challenges moved forward. Thai football leagues issued statements in support and divers from Thailand's famous "cave boys" rescue operation condemned efforts to extradite the footballer. Thailand felt the heat.

On Feb 11, Araibi was released, without notice, and allowed to return to Australia.

Araibi should never have been arrested in the first place. There is no circumstance under which a refugee should be subjected to return proceedings. This is the foundation of international human rights mechanisms around the principle of human protection. The Hakeem case highlights a number of failures in that international system. The concept of human rights, when applied across borders, consistently faces a bedrock question: are human rights universal? Does a person deserve the same protection no matter what jurisdiction that person finds themselves in? Do states have the right to determine the treatment of people within their boundaries? These questions probe the limits of our nation state system and challenge fundamental concepts of belonging, common humanity, and our commitment to a communal understanding of appropriate human treatment.

The risk of return for Araibi was a very real risk, and the outcome could easily have been different. His case was left to the determination of a legal system that does not recognise international rights to protection, and notable recent examples demonstrate a willingness to contravene fundamental protection principles in order to return people to potentially horrific ends. The system lacks accountability and consequence, undermining lessons hard learned through the brutality of World War II and principles established through the horrors of human history.

Thailand is not alone.

Any number of states across the region and across the world fail to uphold basic international standards of human rights protection, especially when it comes to non-citizens. State motivations, be they political, economic, or otherwise, are determined by arguments based on state sovereignty and national political interest, continually disregarding the "universality" of human rights in favour of political expediency, nationalism, and geopolitical advantage. For refugees without influential external advocates, cases like Araibi's are very often unwinnable, and can become a death sentence for the refugee.

In Araibi's case, international football, and subsequent world attention, was the lynchpin. This is not the case for the vast majority of the world's refugees, and the absence of international accountability allows too often for impunity.

In Thailand, nothing has changed: national law remains absent refugee protections and systems that failed Hakeem remain in place. If a lesson has been learned, it is to ensure global scrutiny remains at a minimum. But the opportunities for the country are astounding.

Thailand has the opportunity to capitalise on this moment and to step more prominently into its role as a regional leader, demonstrating its fundamental commitment to universal standards of human treatment, and aligning itself with the 145 countries around the world that have risen to the challenge and obliged themselves to protect refugees under international law. The benefits to Thailand and the region would be immeasurable.

When I asked Australian football legend Craig Foster why he involved himself in the case of an unknown Bahraini playing for an uncelebrated team, he responded without hesitation: "He's one of us".

Indeed, he is.

[nyfacurrent]

Conversations | Debi Cornwall’s Book and Exhibition “Welcome to Camp America”

“Who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them?’ Whatever your response to this work, whether outrage or surprise, fear or compassion, that is the start of conversation.” - Debi Cornwall 

Embroidered seamlessly together with letters, quotations, and affidavits in Arabic and English, Debi Cornwall’s book (Radius Books, 2017) and exhibition of photographs, Welcome to Camp America, casts an absorbing light on life at Guantánamo Bay and the growing diaspora of its cleared and released “detainees.” The vivid and colorful images present a powerful, bizarre juxtaposition between the carefree and restrictive spaces of guards and prisoners. They also give readers an inside look at objects and souvenirs at the Gitmo gift shop (like “I love Gitmo” lip balm) and those who have been released in countries far away from their homelands. Since 2002, Guantánamo Bay has held over 700 prisoners and Welcome to Camp America, deeply researched and visually telling, makes the viewer reflect on the dynamics of power, and who we consider as “other.”

Welcome to Camp America is fiscally sponsored by NYFA and has received numerous honors including being named the winner of the 2018 PDN Annual Publisher’s Choice Award, longlisted for the 2018 Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book Award, and named as one of 2017’s ten best photo books in The New York Times Magazine by Teju Cole. Cornwall is also a 2017 recipient of the Harpo Foundation Visual Artist Grant.

Read our interview with Cornwall to learn more about her experience photographing Guantánamo Bay and mark your calendar to view her upcoming exhibition at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center beginning June 14. You can also purchase your own copy of Welcome to Camp America here through Radius Books.

What: Welcome to Came America Where: Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, 1400 N. American Street #103, Philadelphia, PA 19122 When: June 14 - August 25, 2018; Opening Reception & Artist Talk: June 14, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM; Panel Discussion Rendered: Art, Wrongful Imprisonment and Guantánamo: June 28, 6:00 PM

Above: (First Image) ©Debi Cornwall; Kiddie Pool; 2015; 30x40" limited edition pigment print from medium-format negative hand-developed on site under watch of military censors; from the series “Gitmo at Home, Gitmo at Play,” exploring daily life at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where military regulations forbid photographing faces, through the residential and leisure spaces of prisoners and guards; (Second Image) Headshot: Courtesy of Debi Cornwall

NYFA: What piqued your interest in capturing Guantánamo Bay through photographs?

Debi Cornwall: For 12 years, I had practiced as a civil rights lawyer representing innocent DNA exonerees in wrongful conviction lawsuits within the United States. When I stepped away from litigation and came back to photography, I chose to look at the men cleared and released from Guantánamo Bay because their struggles felt familiar. These men are going through something very similar to what my former clients face, but much more complicated, since Guantánamo’s survivors don’t have a court order declaring their innocence, and many will never return home. Instead, they must rebuild their lives in foreign countries where they know nobody and don’t even speak the language.

©Debi Cornwall; Prayer Rug with Arrow to Mecca, Camp Echo; 2015; 30x40" limited-edition pigment print from medium-format negative hand-developed on site under watch of military censors; from the series “Gitmo at Home, Gitmo at Play.” 

NYFA: How did your civil rights law experience help you navigate the red tape associated with visiting and documenting Guantánamo Bay?

DC: The research and negotiation skills I developed as an attorney were invaluable as I developed Welcome to Camp America, from researching whom to ask for permission to visit the U.S. Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (known as “Gitmo”); to negotiating unprecedented permission to photograph with film under the military rules, which require photographers to work digitally in order to facilitate daily “Operational Security Review” by censors; to finding and connecting with released men, as well as researching appropriate funding partners.

NYFA: On your first visit to Guantánamo Bay, you were presented with 12 pages of rules for photographing and navigating the grounds. What were some of those rules? How did those limitations shape your work?

DC: I would be escorted by military personnel at all times while carrying a camera. I could not take any photographs of surveillance equipment, locking mechanisms, critical infrastructure, certain sections of coastline, or, most importantly, any faces. Even partial profiles would be deleted in Operational Security Review. Knowing I would never be shown what was happening behind closed doors, I decided to look at what I was being asked to see—my series “Gitmo at Home, Gitmo at Play” surveys the “fun” through images of the residential and leisure spaces of both prisoners and guards—and then adds context later.

©Debi Cornwall; Smoke Break, Camp America; 2014; 26x32" limited edition pigment print from digital photograph; from the series “Gitmo at Home, Gitmo at Play.” 

NYFA: Were there any photographs that you took that were deleted, censored, or edited by the guards? Do you believe that this censorship and the lost photographs limit the viewer’s ability to grasp the experience at Guantánamo Bay?

DC: Yes. The frame just after Smoke Break, Camp America, was deleted by military censors because the soldier on the right had turned his head toward the camera, revealing his profile. It’s part of what motivated me to negotiate permission on my third and last trip to photograph with analog equipment, on film. The lawyer in me wanted evidence. Ironically, I think the military regulations made the series much more powerful. Meaning arises not only from what is shown, but what is not.

NYFA: You traveled to nine countries to photograph the diaspora of cleared and released “detainees” from Guantánamo Bay. What was the experience like for them to be photographed and interviewed? What was the experience like for you?

DC: I photographed each man as though he were still at Guantánamo Bay, subject to the military’s “no faces” rule. It’s a conceptual approach to conveying that the trauma persists long after the body is freed. The biggest challenge for me was to build trust with each of the 14 released men not as a lawyer representing them, but as an artist trying to convey a glimpse of their experience in order to invite a fresh look at Guantánamo Bay. We collaborated in choosing locations of relevance to their lives if they returned home, or emphasizing the disorientation of those transferred to third countries. But we always started just by being present together, and seeing what emerged. I’m so grateful to each of the men who agreed to be a part of this project.

©Debi Cornwall; Djamel, Berber (Algeria); Held: 11 years, 11 months, 18 days; Cleared: October 9, 2008 & May 8, 2009; Released: December 4, 2013; Charges: never filed In U.S.; Acquitted and exonerated at trial in Algeria; from the series “Beyond Gitmo,” comprising environmental portraits of 14 men cleared and released from Guantánamo Bay, now living in nine countries. Each portrait is made as though the released man is still there, subject to the military's "no faces" rule for photographs.

NYFA: What do you expect your viewers to walk away with after seeing these photographs?

DC: I hope to engender curiosity. In layering meaning through the juxtaposed photographs, texts, and archival materials in the interactive design of my book, Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay, and adding sound in exhibition, I’m looking to disrupt assumptions and provoke questions about our response to the “War on Terror,” acts taken in our names. Who is “us” and who is “them”? Whatever your response to this work, whether outrage or surprise, fear or compassion, that is the start of conversation.

NYFA: Why did you choose NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship?

DC: As this was my first project as an artist, I was not competitive for the major photography grants. And, my subject matter fell between the cracks of many foundations’ areas of interest. NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship was an invaluable resource, both as a public vote of confidence in the work, and in opening doors to funding partners who otherwise would not have been available to me. The vast majority of the funds I raised—which covered all of the photographic production and most of the book—were raised through NYFA. I have no doubt that the project would have been impossible to realize without NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship.  

- Interview conducted by Priscilla Son, Program Associate, Fiscal Sponsorship & Finance

Are you an artist or new organization, and interested in increasing your fundraising opportunities through NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship? No-fee applications are accepted on a quarterly basis and the next deadline to apply is June 30. We also accept Out-of-Cycle Reviews year-round. Click here to learn more about the program and to apply. Sign up for our free bi-weekly newsletter, NYFA News, for the latest updates and news about Sponsored Projects and Emerging Organizations.

[cfijerusalem]

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION REWARDS TERRORIST LAWYER

Muhammad Alyan (second from L) and his prize for his award-winning argument (photo via jewishpress.com, “New Low: French Consulate in Jerusalem Awards ‘Human Rights’ Prize to Terrorist’s Proud Father” by Hana Levi Julian).

You know how the Bible warns against calling evil good, and good evil (Isaiah 5:20)? Well, one European group just blatantly defied that admonition.

On Sunday, the Geneva-based International Institute for Human Rights and Peace and the Caen Memorial for Peace presented a “human rights” award to Palestinian Arab lawyer Mohammed Alyan.

Alyan was honored for his legal representation three years ago of the wife of one of the terrorists involved in the synagogue massacre in Jerusalem. In that attack, terrorist Ghassan Abu Jamal and his accomplice shot, stabbed and beheaded four Jewish rabbis at worship before also gunning down one of the responding police officers.

When questioned by police, Jamal’s wife, Nadia, expressed support for the massacre and revealed that she had prior knowledge of her husband’s bloody plans. She was subsequently stripped of Israeli residency and lost the health care that Israeli taxpayers had previously covered for her and her family. Nadia insisted her human rights had been violated, and Alyan jumped to her defense. That in itself makes Alyan more villain than hero. But that’s not where the story ends. 

Alyan is also the father of Bahaa Alyan, one of two terrorists responsible for the October 2015 attack on a Jerusalem commuter bus, during which three Israelis were mercilessly murdered.

Beyond the fact that Alyan raised a son capable of committing such atrocities, a year later, in 2016, he was arrested for publicly praising his son’s heinous actions during lectures at local elementary schools.

Alyan is actively trying to encourage future generations of Palestinian Arabs to follow in his son’s footsteps by murdering Israeli Jews. And the Europeans reward him as a “champion of peace and human rights.”

ARAB WOMAN TELLS TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL

A Times of Israel journalist writes: “I first met Boshra Khalaila in the Spring of 2010, at the Ministry of Public Diplomacy’s offices in Jerusalem. She was 24 at the time. Like me, she’d been alarmed by the public relations debacle that followed the Gaza flotilla incident and had somehow found her way to the Ministry’s hastily set-up situation room, to volunteer her time and do damage control, in Arabic.

“I next saw her last January at the first preparatory meeting for the Faces of Israel program, which I have previously written about. She had again volunteered to defend her country and taken time off work to drive from Jerusalem, where she lives, to Tel Aviv for the preparatory sessions, a ritual she would have to repeat often. I was sent to California as part of that program. Boshra’s destination was South Africa – during Israel Apartheid Week.

“In South Africa, she traveled to both Johannesburg and Cape Town, lecturing at four large university events that included a serious round of follow-up work – public discussions, five radio interviews, and a host of newspaper interviews.

“Boshra, a secular, independent and patriotic Israeli Arab woman, defies stereotypes. She grew up in a liberal home in the Arab village of Deir Hana, in the Galilee. Her first contact with Jewish Israelis came at the age of 18, when she enrolled in Haifa University. There, she had to speak Hebrew for the first time. And it is there that she started to develop her political conscience and her attachment to the State of Israel.

“‘I am married and doing a master’s degree [in Tel Aviv]. I am a liberal, free woman, with all the rights that I could enjoy. I compare myself to other women my age in Jordan, the territories, Egypt, any Arab country. They don’t have the rights that I have: freedom of expression, the right to vote. They are forced into marriage at a young age, and religious head covering, despite their own convictions. With me it’s the opposite; I have everything.’”

On one occasion, we sat down for an interview in the lobby of a Tel Aviv hotel. My first question to Boshra was why she feels the need to speak up for Israel so publicly – something that most Jews don’t even feel compelled to do. She answered me in perfect Hebrew: ‘To sacrifice myself for the country that I live in and that gives me rights, that’s a natural price.’

Boshra (R) with “Faces of Israel” participants in S. Africa  (via timesofisrael.com; “Telling Israel like it is — in Arabic” by Philippe Assouline).

“Boshra was part of a team of five people, including another Israeli Arab and a Druze, who were sent to South Africa with Faces of Israel during Israel Apartheid Week. Like us, Boshra and her team had to deal with widespread ignorance about Israel, compounded by a campaign of demonization waged by pro-Palestinian students. Unlike us, she could counter the anti-Israel Middle Eastern students as an Arab herself, in Arabic.

“[The pro-Palestinian students in Johannesburg] had built fake barriers and put up all kinds of slogans demonizing Israel and accusing it of Apartheid, of being a child murderer and the like. There were awful pictures, pictures with dead children, [it was] really terrible.”

“Boshra and her team were generally not welcome. They didn’t even know that there was such a thing as Israeli Arabs. They accused us of being Jews. Some people were hostile, they told us ‘get out,’ ‘we don’t want to hear from you.’ [Some] were even more unwilling to talk to me because I am Arab and was seen as a traitor, but this was only a small part of their group. Others, thankfully, came to listen; they were open-minded about it.”

“Boshra and her team delivered a number of lectures, told their personal stories, dialogued with students and gave interviews. “You want to defend yourself from people that tell the world that [Jews and Arabs] travel on different buses and study at different schools and that there is segregation,” she said. “That just isn’t true: I study in the same educational institutions, ride the same buses, shop in the same supermarkets. Everything that they say is absolutely false. And I do feel that I belong to my country.”

Hoping to give South Africans a glimpse of her everyday life as an Arab citizen of Israel, Boshra instead found herself publicly debating politics with a Palestinian PhD student from Gaza, in Arabic.

“This is what I told him in front of everyone; I spoke in Arabic, and I was translated: ‘I don’t enjoy it when soldiers attack and mothers and babies end up getting killed or injured. It’s hard. But the same is true for Netivot and Sderot, when Kassam rockets hit and, God forbid, someone is killed, it is very hard. On both sides there are mothers and it is hard. I want the Palestinian people to have a country. It’s a natural right.

That said, there are all kinds of conflicts within the Palestinian authority, mainly with Hamas, that prevent progress toward a peaceful settlement for the state of Israel and that is unfortunate.” She added, “If there is any Apartheid – in the sense of flagrant injustice – in the world, it is what is happening in Syria. Thousands of people murdered…the number of dead doesn’t even come close here.”

Thinking back to my experience in California, I assumed that her message would fall on deaf ears. But she surprised me:

“Most of the talks ended with a handshake and a hug. To me this says it all. I have to say that it was important that I wasn’t there representing the government of Israel. It was surprising for them to see that I was a simple person, defending my country for the rights that I have and not speaking on behalf of the government. It came across as very genuine. For them, this was huge – to be able to listen to someone who is not from the government, including for the pro-Palestinian students. When you tell them you are a student and not a government spokesman, they no longer see you as an enemy.”

Boshra’s appearances on campus made waves, and, among her many radio appearances, she was interviewed by an Islamic, Arabic-language radio station in Johannesburg. The interviewer, a religious Saudi man, asked her questions which revealed a disheartening level of ignorance about Israel, the most over-scrutinized and documented country in the world – an ignorance that is unfortunately all too common.

“He asked why Israel doesn’t let Muslims pray or go to Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem; why only Jews are allowed to pray [in the State of Israel]. I told them that in my own small village in the Galilee there are not only one but two mosques and two imams who both get a monthly salary from the state. The interviewer was in shock. I added that I could go pray at Al Aqsa mosque at will, freely. Sure, sometimes there are security concerns and they limit entrance temporarily, but that’s it.”

Thousands of Palestinians pray outside Al-Aqsa Mosque, atop the Temple Mount (by Sliman Khader/FLASH90).

The host was receptive to Boshra’s story and as the conversation turned to the rights of Arabs in Israel, her assertiveness grew. “I said to him: ‘In Saudi Arabia, can a woman drive a car?’ He said no. I said: ‘I can.’ And he was silent. I asked: ‘Can a woman in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia meet a man and get to know him before getting married or is she just forced into marriage at a young age?’ He said no, she can’t. I said: ‘I can.’ And I would answer his questions with my own questions…and each time he would be stunned silent.”

Boshra went on to correct other popular misconceptions that the host had, including ideas about the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. She informed him about the supplies that Israel provides to the strip on a monthly basis, and she reminded him that Egypt also enforces the embargo. She asked him why it was Israel and not Egypt, an Arab county, which provided for the territory’s necessities? “He was speechless. He was often speechless during our interview.”

“The host’s silence, and the reception she got from many if not all of the Arab students that she met, stood in stark contrast to my experience at Berkeley. Boshra’s interviewer, a religious Saudi, was more receptive to new facts than the “liberal” Ivy league students that I faced. “He saw me; I spoke Arabic, I was liberal and secular. This made him quite open-minded, actually.” [The Times of Israel article, by Philippe Assouline.]

“LORD, who...may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless...who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander...and casts no slur on others...who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind...Whoever does these things will never be shaken” (Psalm 15:1-5).

In Messiah, Lonnie C. Mings

[christianpublishinghouse-blog]

1 Timothy 2:3-4 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

3 This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to an accurate knowledge[1] of truth.

Communicating the Truth to Muslims

Many have not had many opportunities to witness to a Muslim. Most of us because of radical Islam (e.g., ISIS and Al Qaeda) over the past 15-years have gotten to know that they have a fervent belief in Allah, the Islamic name of God. However, most Muslims are not that familiar with what the Bible truly teaches. It is our hope that we can share our faith with Muslims when the opportunity presents itself. (1 Tim. 2:3-4) The following is a simple introduction to that process. For more on this subject, please see the following book that will be out late 2015. A CHRISTIAN’S GUIDE TO ISLAM: What Every Christian Needs to Know About Islam and the Rise of Radical Islam by Daniel Janosik[2]

Islamic Worldview

A worldview in the simplest terms is “the sum total of a person’s answers to the most important questions in life.”[3] Ironically, in today’s world, while everyone has a worldview, most are unaware of what it is and how it may affect their life. For this reason, most worldviews are deficient, contradictory, and seldom are they united in thought with their many different pieces. (Nash 1999, 13)

While most of the earth’s seven billion residents are walking around unaware of the fact that they are carrying an insufficient worldview; it actually affects every facet of their life. Moreover, it is actually a matter of life and death that one not only become better aware of their worldview. However, it must be brought into alignment with the only worldview that matter, the thinking of the Creator of humankind himself as he has revealed to us through his loving revelation, the Bible.

What is of supreme importance then, is that the Christians continuously evaluate their own worldview, making sure that it is in harmony with God’s Word. Nevertheless, it is just as important to familiarize ourselves with the worldview of others: Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and Islam, to mention a few. “Converts and immigrant [of Islamic] communities are found in almost every part of the world. With about 1.62 billion followers or 23% of the global population, Islam is the second-largest religion by the number of adherents and, according to many sources, the fastest-growing major religion in the world.”[4]

Evangelism is the obligation of every Christian, to teach and preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. (Matt 24:14; 28:19-20; Ac 1:8) It is for this reason that we will look at the worldview of Islam and contrast it with the Christian belief system. Initially, we will offer a brief overview of how Islam got its start and explain some terms that should help us better understand the Islamic mindset. Next, we will look at a short overview of five facets that every worldview possesses: Islam’s view of God, view reality, knowledge, moral code, and religious character. Finally, we will contrast the beliefs systems of Islam with Christianity before ending with a brief overview of what has been said herein.

Short Overview of Islam[5]

Muhammad bin [son of] Abdullah, was born about 570 C.E., in the prosperous trade city of Mecca. Young Muhammad was very much dissatisfied with the religious system of his day, it became known as the ‘time of ignorance.’ His people were steeped in idolatry and the worship of hundreds of local deities. Muhammad through his interactions with local Christian and Jewish traders had become just as disappointed with their approach to God as well. As far as he was concerned, both Judaism and Christianity had abandoned Allah,[6] and for this reason, the God of the Bible was raising up one last prophet to restore the pure religion of Abraham.

According to A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Islam “the Jews, the Arabs gained a superficial knowledge of the Old Testament stories and Jewish folklore, which is seen in the pages of the Quran. The Christianity that Muhammad encountered was brought to Arabia chiefly by Christians who had fled from the Byzantine Empire, victims of the intricate Christological controversies of those days, who had been condemned as heretics. Muhammad’s very imperfect understanding of Christian doctrine was probably due to the nature of these informants.” (Sookhdeo 2001, 10)

Muhammad’s marriage into a wealthy family afforded him the opportunity to engage in meditative thought as to his religious environment. It was on one of these occasioned trips that Allah or Gabriel began to come to him while he was in his trance. The inhabitants of Mecca were not receptive to these visions, believing Muhammad to be “demon-possessed.” It is at this point, about 622 C.E.; Muhammad made his flight to Medina. This also corresponds with the start of the Muslim[7] calendar. As a result, dates are known as A.H.[8] (Sookhdeo 2001, 12, 80)

The Arabic word jihad[9] was given birth to in about 624 C.E. after the battle of Badr, in which it was decided that the Muslim had an obligation to perform a jihad whenever they perceived a threat of any sort. Further, it was here in Medina that the Quran, a sacred textbook, was further developed into the final revelation from Allah. It is here too that many of the traditions of Islam had their beginning: prayer toward Jerusalem, Friday as the day of worship, and the fast of Ramadan.[10] In Muhammad’s lifetime, he managed to conquer all of Arabia, being the first to unite all Muslims as one, into the religion of Islam. Muhammad died in 632 C.E. and was succeeded by Caliph[11] Abu Bakr in 634 C.E. and Caliph Umar in 644 C.E. Throughout this initial period of unity, Syria, Iraq, Persia, and Egypt fell to the newly founded Islamic empire. (Sookhdeo 2001, 13)

There are the two major divisions of Islam, the Sunni and the Shiah. This came apart back at the time of Muhammad’s successors and is based on a discrepancy of understanding as to who is his lawful religious heirs. Does the procession come after Muhammad’s lineage as the Shiite Muslims assert or is it based on elective office as the majority Sunni claim? The argument continues to this day, with no resolution in sight. The Sunni Muslims are in the majority by about ninety percent, with most of the ten percent of Shiah being found in Iran. Of course, with the Shiah being in the minority, they are under constant persecution by the Sunnis. (Sookhdeo 2001, 65)

Five Facets of the Islamic Worldview[12]

Unlike most of the religious systems that exist today, Islam has accomplished a way of life that many other institutions only dream of, a unity to the point that the Quran and the hadith[13] governs their religious system, state laws, and all social settings, Shariah law.[14] It is sacrilege to violate any of the religious norms, and one Muslim will correct another, and in many cases, it can mean death in Islamic countries.

View of God

Allah is the God of Islam. The Quran states: “So believe in God and His apostles. Say not ‘Trinity’: desist: it will be better for you: for God is One God.” (Surah 4:171, AYA) The Quran does not dispute the reality of God’s existence, like the Bible, it simply speaks as though he is. For the Muslim, Allah is almighty, all powerful, all knowing, and has no equal. Allah is the God of judgment and is to be feared in the sense of dread, not a reverential fear. As Abraham was God’s friend, the concept of a Muslim being the friend of Allah would be foreign to his mindset.

View of Reality

Islam believes Allah, “Almighty God” is the One who created the universe. They believe that the universe we are living in is not eternal as on the Day of Judgment there will be new Heaven and new earth. “On the Day when the earth will be changed to another earth and so will be the heavens and they (all creatures) will appear before Allah, the One, the Irresistible.” (Quran 14:48) Further, they believe the universe to be material, as the earth is under your feet, and is directed by God.

Knowledge

The Arab world was greatly influenced by Aristotle’s work. Arabian scholars, such as Avicenna and Averroes, expanded on and built on Aristotelian thinking in their attempts to bring into line Greek thought with the Muslim teaching. Setting aside the philosophical aspect of epistemology, and looking at the knowledge of Islam as it pertains to their religious institution, one will find that it has predominately been borrowed from late Judaism and Christianity and fused into Muhammad’s understanding, as later interpreted by the Arabian scholars. For example:

Quran: “Allah receiveth (men’s) souls at the time of their death, and that (soul) which dieth not (yet) in its sleep. He keepeth that (soul) for which He hath ordained death.”

Quran: “I do call to witness the Resurrection Day . . . Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? . . . He questions: ‘When is the Day of Resurrection?’ . . . Has not He [Allāh] the power to give life to the dead?” (75:1, 3, 6, 40)

Quran: “They ask: When is the Day of Judgement? (It is) the day when they will be tormented at the Fire, (and it will be said unto them): Taste your torment (which ye inflicted).” (51:12-14)

Quran: “And as for those who believe and do good works, We shall make them enter Gardens underneath which rivers flow to dwell therein forever.” (4:57) “On that day the dwellers of Paradise shall think of nothing but their bliss. Together with their wives, they shall recline in shady groves upon soft couches.” (36:55, 56)

Quran: “And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess.” (Surah 4:3)

Christian Moral Code vs Islam

Each human that has descended from Adam and Eve have a moral code (conscience) that is inherent in them from birth, which corresponds to the words found in Genesis when God said, “Let us make man in our image.” This moral code is an internal awareness that enables one to choose between what is right and what is wrong, “and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” – Romans 2:15.

This inner moral code, while inherent from birth must be trained; if not, it can be deceptive. It can serve as a guide to one’s life. However, it can become dangerous or even treacherous if it has not been enlightened under the correct standards, being in harmony with its maker. As this moral code develops over time it can be influenced for the good or bad by one’s environment, worship, and behavior. It is the correct understanding of the Word of God, which trains the moral code.

On the surface, it may appear that the moral values of the Muslim are humane and selfless in nature. Even many similarities further the misbelief that the Christian and the Muslim are worshiping the same God, similarly, but just by different names. Islam believes that faith is dead without evidence of good works; God will punish any worship that is not directed at him, rights against crime against your fellow man, adultery and fornication are wrong, similar abhorrence to the seven deadly sins, the obeying of the law of the land, drunkenness, suicide, and homosexuality are forbidden.

This section does not contain the space to look at all facets of the Islamic moral code; therefore, we will briefly consider how the women of Islam are treated. Unlike the West, it is the woman, who brings honor to the family, thus there are many restrictions on the women of Islam, in order to protect the family honor. There is an equation within Islam: the greater the restriction, the greater the honor. For example, without exception, a girl must retain her virginity for marriage. The woman must have someone, even a child, who accompanies and supervises her everywhere she goes. The woman’s role in the house is to be the caretaker, and no Muslim husband would dare lift a hand, even if the wife has a full-time job outside the home. In the name of modesty, the woman is to be covered from the ‘neck to wrist and ankle, as well as her hair.’ The marriage is arranged, and while the female may refuse, the pressure is usually insurmountable. While it is permissible for a man to marry a Christian or a Jew (as they would then be Muslim), a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man. Divorce in the Islamic community is very similar to the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus day: the man can divorce the woman for any reason by simply saying three times, in front of witnesses: “I divorce you.” The woman, on the hand, is largely unable to divorce the husband. The rape of Christian women within Islamic countries, while being a dishonor to the woman, it is a means for a Muslim man to proliferate the Muslim population because a child is Muslim if born of a Muslim man. While many today are attempting a progressive liberal approach in looking at similarities between Islam and Christianity, it has its dark side, and any syncretism attempts are seriously misplaced. (Sookhdeo 2001, 59-64)

Religious Character

As opposed to delving into Islam’s highly developed religious rituals and traditions; we will take a brief look at how Islam’s tolerance, or lack thereof for other religious institutions. Actually, Islamic scholars who are behind the footnotes in the Quran and articles dealing with Islam’s view of Christianity and Judaism have begun a campaign to conceal their hatred for these religious institutions, viewing them as infidels.[15] For example, while the word fight may be found in the writings, it actually means kill. The end game for Islam is to convert the world to Islam and to rule from Jerusalem, under Shariah law. This can be done by preaching, or by terrorism and killing the infidel. The words of the infamous Osama bin Laden bring this point home with a chilling affect: “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.”

Islam versus Christianity

ISLAM CHRISTIANITY

View of God: Islam considers the Trinity to blasphemous. (Q: 4:171, 5:17, 5:72-75)

View of God: Trinity―one God on three persons―separate in person, equal in nature and subordinate in duty. (John 1:1; Isa 44:8)

View of Man: While man may be may be weak, he is capable of righteousness before God.

View of Man: Man is fallen and sinful by nature, as inherited from Adam. (Rom 5:15)

View of Salvation: Islamic belief is that we can attain a righteous standing before God by works, and the denial of Christ’s ransom sacrifice. (Q: 4:157)

View of Salvation: Man, who is fallen cannot save himself, and is in need of a savior, and salvation is by faith alone. (John 3:16; Matt 20:28)

View of Heaven: The Islamic perception of heaven is very carnal as they will drink wine and have sexual relations with dozens of virgins. (Q: 2:25, 4:57, 13:35, 36:55-57, 37:39-48, 47:15, 52:20-23, 55:46-78, 56:12-40)

View of Heaven: The Christian perception of heaven is that we are no longer troubled with the concern of eating and drinking, there being no one getting married, for we will be like angels and drinking and with our new bodies, pain and suffering will be no more. (Rom 14:17; Matt 22:30; Rev 21:4)

View of Predestination: Ironically, while Islam believes that man cannot be held responsible for his actions; Shariah law is very quick to exact justice for certain actions, many of which result in death. (Q: 35:8)

View of Predestination: This term is really dealt with under doctrines, such as: foreknowledge, salvation, eternal security, the destiny of the unevangelized. Under these doctrinal positions, you have numerous views, but the majority consensus is that man is to be held responsible for his actions.

View of the Qur’an: Islam believes that the Qur’an is the very word of God through Muhammad and inerrant, never attaining copying errors. (Q: 61:6)

View of the Bible: Conservative Christianity believes the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21)

View of the Bible: Islam believes the Bible to have been the inspired Word of God, but has been corrupted beyond all trustworthiness.

View of the Qur’an: Early collections of Muhammad’s writings came in several different variations because they were retrieved from memory. Around 650-656 there was an attempt to deal with this by creating a standard edition.

(Sookhdeo 2001, 25-48)

While it is paramount that the Christian, who attempts to engage the Muslim in his ministry, be very much aware of the belief system of Islam, it is best to accept that, it is very difficult to disprove Islam based on knowledge alone. It is God alone, who will help the message grown within the Muslim heart. (1 Cor. 3:5-9) However, this knowledge of Islam will enable the evangelizer to counter, explain, and overturn the wrong beliefs that may be raised by the Muslim. It should be understood that most Muslims are like most Christians, in that; they are not that familiar with their Quran, like the Christian with his Bible.

To the Muslim, Muhammad is the greatest prophet that has ever lived, and it will bring the conversation to a complete stop if it should be perceived that the Christian is criticizing him in any way. While the Christian cannot honor Muhammad in a conversation with such honorifics as ‘the blessed Muhammad,’ it is fine to say ‘the prophet Muhammad.’ Instead of attempting to dethrone Muhammad, it is the wisest course to educate them about Christ, which they do not view as being the Son of God, but rather a great prophet like Muhammad.

Islam has circled the earth with its presence, and it would be a mistake, to assume that every Muslim is the same. Many Muslims are only Muslim in a very basic sense: prayer, Ramadan, and occasioned visits to the mask. They may have been westernized and feel ousted by the conservative Islamic community. However, Islamic extremist is just as prevalent, and caution is the word of the day. Until one has come to realize whom they are speaking with, it is best to be very cautious about what is said, and how it is said. It must also be kept in mind that his objective is to evangelize his visitor, as much as it is the Christian’s objective to evangelize him.

A white Christian attempting to evangelize a non-white Muslim is at a disadvantage from the start because they are lumped in with the immoral western world. It is best to address this immediately with, “I know that the western world is immoral in the extreme, and even within the Christian community, there are such cases, but would you agree that all major religions have those who do not represent themselves well?’ (Sookhdeo 2001, 73-75)

Some final suggestions are to be friendly and tactful. (Pro. 25:15) Keep in mind that while Most Muslims do not know their Quran well, what they do know is deeply entrenched has been learned by rote. Part of the Muslim development is hearing the fundamental Muslim teachings repeatedly, which is part of their spiritual development. If we are to reach the heart of a Muslim, it will be through patience and understanding. Arguing with a Muslim will serve us no better than arguing with any other person over religious matters. Instead of using the word “Bible,” refer to it as the book of God. Muslims also do not like the phrase “Son of God,” but they have great regard for Jesus as a prophet or messenger, so avoid the phrase “Son of God” until you have a long record of rapport. It is best to witness to just one person and avoid talking with a group. Most importantly, women should witness to women and men to men. If a female Muslim were caught talking with a westerner for an extended time, her life could be in danger, as honor killings are becoming the norm even in the West. In addition, keep in mind modestly dressed in the West is not necessarily modestly dressed in the Muslim world. Some things to build rapport on are the greatness of God and the love of God. We could speak on the wrongness of idol worship, the wickedness found in the world today, wars, uprisings, racial hatred, as well as the hypocrisy of religion. If we sense any anger, it is best to excuse ourselves from the conversation as soon as possible.

Each of us is affected by the diversity of the world we live in, and it has come to almost every neighborhood. With this variety of beliefs, it is no longer the case of a Christian attempting to share his gospel with unbelievers. Thus, we need to educate ourselves and broaden our understanding of what others worldviews are, which may very well open up the opportunity of one receiving life. As Islam makes up 23 percent of the earth’s population (1.62 billion followers), we have given more space to them, which will not be the case with other groups below.

  Communicating the Truth to Atheists

First, it should be recognized that today’s atheist is not the same as the atheist of 30-50 years ago. The atheists of the 1950s to the 1980s simply did not believe in creation or a Creator and were not eager to share that belief with others. Today, the atheist’s movement is more involved in sharing their beliefs than Christians are. Their messages are on billboards, the radio, and television, and they have actually written many apologetic books defending their faith, i.e., secularism, humanism, relativism, and nihilism. We have now entered the era of the New Atheism.

New Atheism is a social and political movement that began in the early 2000s in favor of atheism and secularism promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that “religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.”[16] There is uncertainty about how much influence the movement has had on religious demographics worldwide. In England and Wales, as of 2011 the increase in atheist groups, student societies, publications and public appearances coincided with the non-religious being the largest growing demographic, followed by Islam and Evangelicalism.[17] New Atheism lends itself to and often overlaps with secular humanism and antitheism, particularly in its criticism of what many New Atheists regard as the indoctrination of children and the perpetuation of ideologies.[18]

While the New Atheists authors write mainly from a scientific perspective, we should not assume that every atheist is a scientist. Many atheists have read the bestselling books by such authors as Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949–2011),[19] Richard Dawkins,[20] Sam Harris,[21] and Daniel Dennett.[22] Christopher Hitchens said that a person “could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct,” but that “an antitheist, a term I’m trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there’s no evidence for such an assertion.”[23] Another thing that we should not assume about all atheists is that they are super intelligent and there is no way that we could ever compete with them in a conversation about science. Most atheists only know what they have read from the atheist books listed in the footnotes, which are not science textbooks.

Well, it should be noted that we have some Christian apologists who have done the work for us, giving us the material so that if we choose to have a better understanding and wish to at least hold our own in such a conversation, we can. The Christian apologists highlighted below are not given extra space because they are all around the best apologists. Christian apologist can have a vast knowledge of many subject areas but they cannot be an expert on everything. While one may be an expert on textual criticism, defending the trustworthiness of Scripture, another may be a Christian philosopher and theologian, while others may be a physicist, mathematician, or scientist, studying the philosophy of science, it is the latter, who are focused on here because of the subject matter.

 The leading Christian apologist is William Lane Craig. He is a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He is an American Christian apologist, analytic Christian philosopher, and theologian. Craig’s philosophical work focuses primarily on the philosophy of religion, but also on metaphysics and philosophy of time. His theological interests are in historical Jesus studies and philosophical theology. He is known for his debates on the existence of God with public figures such as Christopher Hitchens and Lawrence Krauss. Craig established an online apologetics ministry, Reasonable Faith. His current research deals with divine aseity and the challenge posed by Platonist accounts of abstract objects. Craig is also an author of several books, including Reasonable Faith, which began as a set of lectures for his apologetics classes.[24]

John C. Lennox is an Irish mathematician, philosopher of science, Christian apologist, and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University. He is also Pastoral Advisor of Green Templeton College and Fellow of Wycliffe Hall. He is a leading voice defending the notion of the relationship between science and religion. Lennox is a leading figure in the evangelical intelligentsia movement.[25]

Christian apologist Stephen C. Meyer received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the philosophy of science. A former geophysicist and college professor, he now directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle.[26] Christian Apologist William A. Dembski is a mathematician and philosopher. He is a Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, where he directs its Center for Cultural Engagement. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. Previously he was the Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Theology and Science at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, where he founded its Center for Theology and Science. Before that, he was Associate Research Professor in the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Baylor University, where he headed the first intelligent design think-tank at a major research university: The Michael Polanyi Center.

Christian Apologist Norman L. Geisler (PhD, Loyola University) has taught theology, philosophy, and apologetics on the college or graduate level for over 50 years. He has served as a professor at Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Liberty University. He was the co-founder of both Southern Evangelical Seminary and Veritas Evangelical Seminary. He currently is the Chancellor of Veritas Evangelical Seminary, the Distinguished Professor of Apologetics at Veritas Evangelical Seminary, and a Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary.[27]

The list of Christian apologists could go on for some time, as we have so many, to name just a few more, Ravi Zacharias (RZIM.org), Greg Koukl (STR.org), Paul Copan (PaulCopan.com), Gary Habermas  (GaryHabermas.com), Richard Howe (Richardghowe.com), Hugh Ross (Reasons.org), and (Tim Keller (TimothyKeller.com). Many may be unaware that we now have some very prominent female Christian apologists, such as Judy Salisbury (logospresentations.com),[28] Dianna Newman (ses.edu),[29] Sarah Renee,[30] Nancy Pearcey,[31] Melissa Cain-Travis,[32] Holly Ordway,[33] Leslie Keeney[34] Kristen Davis,[35] Lori Peters,[36] Pamela Christian,[37] and Sarah Geis.[38] These women are taking the apologetic world by storm. They are setting a fine example for young girls, who can relish in the fact that they can prepare to defend the faith and the Word of God just as well as a William Lane Craig or a Norman L. Geisler. Why have I given you so many names and links? These are indispensable resources if we are going to defend the faith against the New Atheism. While many of the above Christian apologists, both male, and female, possess some of the greatest minds, which would seem to prevent the average Christian from partaking of their knowledge, it just is not so. Their books, their websites, their blogs and their videos are designed for the churchgoer, written on about a 9th-11th-grade level. Below, I will offer the reader the basics of what we can do to succeed in giving a witness to the New Atheist, but first, we must consider the various reasons as to why they may not believe in the first place.

Reasons for Disbelief

Not all atheists were born to atheist parents. Many were a part of some religion or another, believing in God, but over time abandoned their faith. Their faith was weakened by severe health problems in the family, a death of a loved one, or some great injustice befell them. With others, it was one agnostic or atheist professor after another once they reached schools of higher learning, which eroded their belief in the Bible or God.

A man was born with a debilitating illness. As an infant, he had been baptized into Catholicism; he had long felt there was no God. The end came one day when he asked the priest, “Why did God make give me this illness?” The priest replied, “Because he loves you.” The answer was so insane, so he walked out, never looking back. Consider a young woman who was diagnosed as having cancer at the age of thirteen, who spent most of her youth in and out of hospitals. The mother of this child was so desperate; she brought a Pentecostal into the hospital to pray for the young girl because the word was he could heal the sick. Sadly, though, there was no cure, there was no miraculous healing. After her daughter’s death, the most swore that she would never believe in some God, becoming an atheist.

“I have seen many friends that I went to high school with just completely abandon their faith, and I was in danger of doing the same when I first went to college.” – Chad, college junior

“No matter what background you come from, the transition from high school to college will try your faith.” – Vanessa, college sophomore[39]

A pastor’s kid tells his father, “I’m not a Christian anymore. I don’t know what happened. I just left it.”[40]

Again, we turn to William Lane Craig’s words, as he offers the following exhortation to parents, which would also apply to pastors and elders as well,

I think the church is really failing these kids. Rather than provide them training in the defense of Christianity’s truth, we focus on emotional worship experiences, felt needs, and entertainment. It’s no wonder they become sitting ducks for that teacher or professor who rationally takes aim at their faith. In high school and college, students are intellectually assaulted with every manner of non-Christian philosophy conjoined with an overwhelming relativism and skepticism. We’ve got to train our kids for war. How dare we send them unarmed into an intellectual war zone? Parents must do more than take their children to church and read them Bible stories. Moms and dads need to be trained in apologetics themselves and so be able to explain to their children simply from an early age and then with increasing depth why we believe as we do. Honestly, I find it hard to understand how Christian couples in our day and age can risk bringing children into the world without being trained in apologetics as part of the art of parenting.[41]

Reaching the Heart of an Atheist

Many are like the above example or have other reasons as to why they abandoned the faith. The key ingredient is their reason, which they have dwelled on to the point they have hardened their hearts. If we repeatedly violate the Christian conscience that has been trained to distinguish between good and bad, it will become callused, unfeeling. To violate the conscience is to ignore it when it is tugging at you to do the right thing. While this applies largely to sinning and ignoring the Christian conscience, it can just as easily apply to irrational thinking as well. If we have an issue with God, with his Word, with the faith, with someone in the faith, with injustices of the world and we ignore these, failing to find an answer, we will eventually fall away from the faith. Paul called this a spiritual shipwreck. Paul told young Timothy “some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.” (1 Tim 1:19, NASB) If we entertain our false reasons, our confidence in God and his Word of truth, the Bible, can grow weak and our faith can die. Just as we have reasons for the hope that dwells in us, we can also have reasons if they go unanswered or at least addressed, they can kill the hope that dwells in us.

Many of these ones, not all, simply need a solution to their reason for abandoning the faith. ‘Why does evil exist?’ ‘Why does an all-powerful God of love allow evil to exist?’[42] Why do bad things happen to good people?’ ‘Why is life so unfair?’[43] ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘Why is there so much religious hypocrisy?’ If we lack understanding of an issue that is eating at us, we begin to drift away, become sluggish, become hardened by the not knowing, so that we shrink back to destruction. Just as we entered the path of life, we can also reenter the path of death.

Our first goal when someone says, ‘I am an atheist,’ is to ask why. If he is open to talking further, we need to try to find out what led his reason and his falling away. As we listen to his story, we need to do so with empathy because this could be us, or it could be a loved one, and we would want an empathetic ear if that were the case. After we have what we need to make a spiritual diagnosis, we can look for a solution. We can start by saying, it has been our experience that there is a reasonable and logical answer to every Bible difficulty that we have encountered. We can show even more empathy if we have struggled with something that made us pause for a moment. After this rapport, ask something like, “What if I can find you a reasonable, logical answer to this issue that has plagued you for so long. Even if you still choose to remain an atheist, would it not be a relief to have that answer?” If he answers yes, we now have a serious job ahead of ourselves. Undoubtedly, there is much information on the issue. We must find it and the answer that we promised. Undeniably, not all atheists are going to accept the truth. However, there are many who are willing to find a response to the issue that tore them from their faith. Use reason, logic, persuasion and, above all, the power of God’s Word, to lead them into the truth or back to the truth.[44] – Acts 28:23-24; Heb. 4:12.

Communicating the Truth to Jewish Persons

The sons of Israel in the first-century responded positively to the preaching of Jesus and his apostles. (Acts 10:36) The same holds true for today. However, you have Messianic Judaism, is a movement that combines Christianity, most importantly, the Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah, with elements of Judaism and Jewish tradition. This is not going to be acceptable though, as Jesus told them we are not trying to put new wine in an old wine skin. First, we must deal with the fact of whether the Jews are still God’s chosen people.

Are the Natural Jews Today Still God’s Chosen People?

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: (James 1:1c)

The twelve tribes in the dispersion that James mentions are not actual the 12 tribes of Israel. We note in verse 2 James says, “Consider it all joy, my brothers,” and the tribes of Jewish Israel were not James’ brother, ‘who were holding their faith in their glorious Lord Jesus Christ, as natural Israel rejected Jesus Christ vehemently. (Jam. 1:2; 2:1, 5) During the last days of Jesus’ ministry, he explicitly stated what was to happen to natural Israel. Jesus said, “I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:43) A short time later, he said,

Matthew 23:37-39 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

Lament over Jerusalem

37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

38 Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!

39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

In looking at verse 37 of Matthew 23, we see that Jesus’ words are not those of a harsh judge, who is looking readily to punish the Jewish people for their 1,500 years of rebelling and sinning horrendously against the Father. Rather, he has tried to be patient with them throughout his last three and half year ministry. When Jesus began his ministry, all Jesus wanted was nothing more than what his Father wanted, i.e., repentance for centuries of willful sinning, so that they could avoid the judgment that was coming. Well, over five hundred natural Israel responded to Jesus’ words, with thousands upon thousands more listening to the apostle Paul and other evangelists. They escaped the judgment that came upon Jerusalem in 70 C.E. (Lu 21:20-22) In verse 38, Jesus indicated that very soon God was not going to accept the worship of the Israelites, at the typical temple in Jerusalem. (Matt 24:1-2) In verse 39, Jesus is saying, they will never see him with eyes of faith unless they accept him and his Father.

In other words, natural Israel lost its favored position as God’s chosen people, and this was to be given to another. Who? This new nation proved to be a spiritual Israel, which the apostle Paul referred to as “the Israel of God.” It would be made up of Jews, who accepted Jesus Christ and non-Jews. Entry into this “Israel of God” was not dependent on the natural descent, but rather on one coming to “know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3), In other words, it was a matter of ‘trusting in Jesus Christ.’ (John 3:16) Nevertheless, natural Israel was made up of 12 tribes, so James was simply drawing on the number 12, which carries the connotation of completeness. If a natural Jew or a non-Jew were to become a part of this spiritual Israel, the Israel of God, they would have to acknowledge, “Circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.” (Rom. 2:29) He must further understand “it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all …” (Rom. 4:16) There are many verses, which qualify what it means to be a part of this Israel of God. See also, Rom. 4:17; 9:6-8; Gal. 3:7, 29; 4:21-31; Phil. 3:3

These spiritual Israelites were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Shortly after Pentecost 33 C.E., there were arrests, threats, and beatings. (Ac 4:1-3, 21; 5:17, 18) At that time, Stephen was seized and stoned to death. ” (Ac 7:52-60) The murder of Stephen was only the beginning, as Saul of Tarsus was to bring great persecution of the Christians in the Jerusalem area, which led to the dispersing of Christians throughout the then known world. (Ac 8:1-4; 9:1, 2) However, this really failed, as it was not long before Christian congregations were found everywhere, by the evangelism of none other than the very persecutor turned Christian, namely, the apostle Paul (formerly known as Saul). In fact, about 62-64 C.E., Peter writes, “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.”–1 Peter 1:1

Written for Our Instruction

We can learn some object lessons from what God has disclosed to us in his Word. Paul told the Corinthians “these things happened to those people as an example but are written for our instruction.” (1 Cor. 10:11) He also told the congregation in Rome, “For whatever was written beforehand was written for our instruction, in order that through patient endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we may have hope.” (Rom. 15:4) The Israelites are a perfect example for us to learn. God personally chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they were walking with him, while others chose to abandon him. The nation of Israel was the descendants of Jacob’s 12 sons. They became God’s chosen people, of whom he made a covenant, to which they agreed to follow. If they walked in the truth, they would be blessed by Jehovah’s presence. If they abandoned that walk like the pagan nations, they would lose his presence, resulting in the difficulties that came with living in this fallen world. Whilst they maintained their loyalty, they never became victims to enemy nations. (Deut. 28:7) Furthermore, they could depend on crop growth that was exceptional year after year, as well as their flocks of animals. (Ex. 22:1-15) Moreover, they had no reason to build jails to house criminals, because they had the perfect social system. (Ex. 22:1-15) In addition, they did not suffer from diseases like other nations (Deut. 7:15). Jehovah promised them that they would “be blessed more than all of the peoples,” and when they walked in the truth, this proved to be true.

Deuteronomy 7:14 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle.

We all have the history before of how Israel refused to walk in the truth. They would walk in the truth for a number of years, and then they would abandon that truth until life was impossibly difficult, moving them to return to Jehovah. This walking in the truth, abandoning the truth, and repenting to return to the truth, went on for 1,500 years. The final difficulty in this back and forth was their rejection of the Son of God. His words to them were quite clear, and needs to be repeated again:

Matthew 21:43 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

43 Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation,[45] producing the fruit of it.

Again,

Matthew 23:37-39 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

38 Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!

39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Just who are the people that the Kingdom was to be given to after the Israelites fell out of favor with Jehovah God? God chose for himself a new spiritual nation, which became the Christian congregation that Jesus established between 29 and 33 C.E. He no longer had the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as his chosen people, by which other nations would bless themselves. Keep in mind again, only Jews were brought into the Christian congregation from 29 C.E. (Jesus started ministry) up unto 36 C.E. (first Gentile Baptized, i.e., Cornelius). This is explained in greater detail below.

Acts 10:34-35 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears[46] him and works righteousness[47] is acceptable to him.

Acts 13:46 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

46 And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

Did this mean that no Jewish person could be a part of the Kingdom? Hardly! The first disciples of that Kingdom for seven years, 29 C.E. to 36 C.E. were only Jewish people. After 36 C.E., and the baptism of the first Gentile, Cornelius, anyone, including the Jews, could be a part of this Kingdom, as long as they accepted the King, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) At Jesus’ Baptism, there was a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt.3:16-17) Jesus’ teaching, miraculous signs, his ransom sacrifice, and resurrection, established him as the truth, having the authority and power of the Father.[48] The Christians in the first century were given the position of being God’s chosen people. (Acts 1:8; 2:1-4, 43) It would be through Jesus to the Christian congregation that the truth would now flow. As Paul told the Corinthians, “For to us God has revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” (1 Cor. 2:10) It happened just as Jesus had said it would, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and have revealed them to young children.” – Matthew 11:25

However, more truth was on the horizon with the birth of the Christian congregation. There had been 39 books written by the Jewish writers of the Hebrew Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:16-17), and now there was to be added an additional 27 books by Jewish Christians, making up the Greek New Testament (2 Peter 2:15-16). Thus, there were 66 small books, written over a 1,600-year period that would make one book, which we hold today in our modern-day translations. Yes, some 40 plus Bible writers were, as Peter put it, “men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:21) The above view is Scriptural, but it is also the minority view. Most believe as Dr. Elmer Towns,

Israel’s hardness of heart. The Bible speaks of a partial and temporary insensibility of the nation of Israel. The Jews, who had the Scriptures and should have welcomed their Messiah, rejected him and called for his crucifixion. “He (Jesus) came unto his own (the Jews), and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Paul spoke of “blindness (hardness)” as happening to Israel (Rom. 11:25). Israel’s rejection is temporary. The time is coming when many Jews will turn to Christ (Rom. 11:26; 2 Cor. 3:14, 15). God’s temporarily setting aside the nation he loves so much ought to be a warning to Christians not to reject the teaching of the Scriptures.[49]

Elmer Towns says, “Israel’s rejection is temporary. The time is coming when many Jews will turn to Christ.” They had 1,500 years as God’s chosen people, favored in every way, and they abandoned God at every turn, to the point of sacrificing their own children to false gods, culminating in the rejection of the Son of God, who said he had come specifically for them. Moreover, John himself says that anyone or group who rejects Jesus Christ is the antichrist (i.e., instead of or against Christ). The Messianic Jews do accept Christ, so most would think they are fine. However, that just is not the case because it is the combining it with elements of Judaism and Jewish tradition. What did Jesus say about Jewish tradition? He said you are “making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.” (Mark 13:7) Let us look at Jesus words at Luke 5:38, “But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.” What did Jesus mean?

The conclusion of the second picture is stated positively: new wine must have new skins; new ways must have new containers. Jesus’ teaching will not survive by making it conform to old ways. A new form, a new spirit, and a new approach are required. Old questions are irrelevant. Such a message had relevance beyond the time of Jesus’ ministry. In the early church and throughout the new age, to re-Judaize Christianity would have missed the newness of what Jesus brings. The issue raised here is one of the major concerns in the Book of Acts, as the church wrestles with the proper limits of the influence of its Jewish heritage. The focus is not on a return to something old and ancient, but on the presence of something new. This does not mean that some forms of the old worship, like fasting, cannot continue; but it does mean that they are seen differently. The remarks fit the situation in Jesus’ ministry, but the significance became timeless for the church’s perspective.[50] (Bock 1994, p. 521)

Will the Jews in the last days, or during the great tribulation, finally be moved to accept Jesus Christ?

Romans 11:25-26 Good News Translation (GNT)

25 There is a secret truth, my friends, which I want you to know, for it will keep you from thinking how wise you are. It is that the stubbornness of the people of Israel is not permanent, but will last only until the complete number of Gentiles comes to God. 26 And this is how all Israel will be saved. As the scripture says,

“The Savior will come from Zion and remove all wickedness from the descendants of Jacob.”

Notice the GNT says, “this is how (ESV, HCSB, “and in this way”)  Greek, houtos] all Israel will be saved.” In addition, notice that this “all Israel will be saved” is not accomplished by some conversion of all the Jews, but rather “the complete number of Gentiles comes to God.” A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament [Edinburgh, 1937, G. Abbott-Smith, p. 329] defines houtos as meaning “in this way, so, thus.”). In addition, A TRANSLATOR’S HANDBOOK ON PAUL’S LETTER TO THE ROMANS [New York, 1973, United Bible Societies, p. 227], says, “This is how relates back to what Paul has previously said.”

If we are to understand Romans 11:25-26 correctly, it must be in the context of the book of Romans as a whole, and the rest of the New Testament. What did Paul say at Romans 2:28-28, “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” At Romans 9:26 Paul says, “For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel.”

What about the argument that the Abrahamic covenant assures that the Jews will always be God’s chosen people.

Galatians 3:27-29 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (Italics mine)

Here we see things from God’s perspective, it is not a matter of being a natural descendant of Abraham that makes one a part of Abraham’s seed. Are the things going on in Israel today and un unto Christ’s return a part of Bible prophecy?

Ezekiel 37:21-22 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

21 then say to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land 22 and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.

Israel has not been under one king of the line of David for well over 2,300 years. The state of Israel today is a republic.

Isaiah 2:2-4 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

2 It will come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be established on the top of the mountains, and will be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it, 3     and many peoples will come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For the law[51] will go forth from Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge between the nations, and will correct matters for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

What do we find when we look at the city of Jerusalem today? Do we find “the house of the God of Jacob”? No, we do not; rather we find an Islamic shrine. Certainly, living within the heart of Islamic nations, they would not ever dream of “beat[ing] their swords into plowshares.”

Zechariah 8:23 English Standard Version (ESV)

23 Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

Zechariah 8:23 American Standard Version (ASV)

23 Thus says Jehovah of hosts: In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.

Zechariah 8:23 Young’s Literal Translation (YLT)

23 Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: In those days take hold do ten men of all languages of the nations, Yea, they have taken hold on the skirt of a man, a Jew, saying: We go with you, for we heard God [is] with you!

Within the book of Zechariah alone, the personal name of God (Jehovah JHVH, or Yahweh YHWH) appears 130 times. If you are ever around an orthodox Jew, say Jehovah or Yahweh, and he will jump back and say something like, “we do not say the blessed name.” Jews, because of traditions and superstitions have not said the personal name of God for about 2,000 years. It is to the point that it has even been removed from almost all English translations, replacing it with the title “the Lord” or “LORD.” These prophecies of a restored Israel, who do they apply to, natural Israel?

Galatians 6:15-16 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

This “Israel of God” is not based on the requirements that Abraham had received from God, i.e., all males having to be circumcised. Instead, as was stated in 3:26-29, “there are neither Jew nor Greek, … for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

The Average Jewish Person

It should be noted that the average Jew we might run into is generally a faithful follower of the traditions of Rabbis, and doctrinal views are likely not of interest. Somewhat like the Catholic Church viewing the word of the pope to be equal to Scripture, this would be true of the average Jew and Rabbi traditions. Therefore, while we might have thought we could have had some deep Bible discussion to build rapport, this is unlikely. In addition, the word “Bible” is generally viewed as a Christian book. It is for this reason; it is best to talk of the Hebrew Scriptures, even the “Torah.” If anyone can read biblical Hebrew, which I know there are a limited number, his or her success of reading from the Hebrew Scriptures directly would be very successful with the Orthodox Jews, who will seldom give a Christian the time of day.

Well, we might be wondering just what can we talk about with the average Jewish person. They hold to the fact that there is one God, monotheism, who is interested in the welfare of his creation. However, it is best not to use the personal name of God (“Jehovah” or “Yahweh”), as one of their traditions is that the divine name should not be pronounced. They, like Christians, believe that God has involved himself in human history and continued to do so. Some Jewish people struggle with why God would allow the atrocities of six million Jews being slaughtered during the Holocaust of World War II.[52] Most are aware of the history within the Hebrew Scriptures, which makes for many talking points.

Of course, it is best to stay away from Jesus being divine but many Jews do see Jesus as a prophet. It might be best not to refer to him as the Messiah, even though that is the Hebrew transliteration and preferable to “Christ.” The reason is the Jewish people are still awaiting the Messiah. This deep discussion would have to wait until we have talked with someone many times and have built up much rapport and trust. It would be better, to begin with such ones as Noah, Abraham and Moses, and their role in Jewish history and how it affects us today.

When the time comes to address Jesus as the Messiah, we would want to begin with Deuteronomy 18:15 (UASV), which reads, “Jehovah your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers, to him you shall listen.” Then, ask the person, “Who was it that Moses was thinking of when he spoke of a prophet like himself?” “How should this prophecy be understood?” [Allow for an answer] Ask/state, “You would agree that Moses was speaking of a specific, special individual, right?” [Allow for an answer] I know some Jewish scholars have held that Moses was just making a general comment about God’s intention to rise up many coming prophets, but the Hebrew word for prophet (navi) is in the singular is it not?” [Allow for an answer] “This coming one is being compared to Moses in what way?” [Allow for an answer] Then, have him read the closing words of Deuteronomy,

Deuteronomy 34:10-12 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

10 Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, 11 for all the signs and wonders which Jehovah sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, 12 and for the mighty hand[53] and for all the great wonders which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.

Ask him if he would agree that is was like the Joshua, the son of Nun, who recorded these words about Moses. [Allow for an answer] Ask, if he feels that Joshua, who too was a great leader in Israel, viewed himself as the coming prophet like Moses. [Allow for an answer] Ask again, “what do you think Moses meant that God would raise up a prophet like Moses?” “In other words, what was it about Moses that this coming one would resemble?” [Allow for an answer]

We could then delve into how Moses was a great leader; he was a representative of God, “a prophet, a miracle worker, a teacher, and a judge.”[54] We could ask as series of leading question. What did Jeremiah promise at 31:31-34? (Read)

Jeremiah 31:31-34 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares Jehovah, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares Jehovah. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Jehovah: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know Jehovah,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

“What was this new covenant and what was its purpose?” [Allow for an answer] “When was the new covenant to come into effect?” [Allow for an answer] “Consequently, what would happen to the Mosaic Law?”

What is promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34? What was the new covenant’s stated purpose? Consequently, what would become of the Law covenant? [Allow for an answer] How was this new covenant going to affect the nations?” (Read Gen. 22:18) [Allow for an answer] This type of building and leading will evidence your familiarity with the Hebrew Scripture and give him something to ponder.

Communicating the Truth to Jehovah’s Witnesses

This is no easy task for most Christians. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are well trained to defend their beliefs. They spend five meetings a week, much personal study and meeting preparation in taking in what they believe and learning how to defend their version of the faith. This is not said to scare anyone off from trying to approach the Witnesses, but rather to encourage you to prepare well. The irony is; we do not have to go out and find the Witnesses, as they come to us because they go house-to-house. The objective is not to be confrontational, as Witnesses are trained to abandon such conversations.

The best thing we can do is know what we believe very well and be accomplished at defending it. It is best to know what they believe as well and what Scriptures they use to defend such views. However, it is not that simple because they will know what we believe and what verses we use and they will be prepared to undermine those verses. As I said, it is not going to be easy. It gets worse still if the average Witness cannot deal with our preparedness, but they believe we are sincerely interested, they will bring a pioneer[55] with them the next time they visit us. These ones have far more experience and knowledge. If that fails, they will bring the most qualified congregation elder. Do not be fooled, some Witnesses study secular books; they learn Hebrew and Greek, among many other academic fields. These latter ones are few in number, but I thought I would mention it in case they happen to be in your area.

If we want the Witnesses to visit us, all we have to do is write or call the main branch of Jehovah’s Witnesses[56] and ask for one of their books, which will give us the basic beliefs they hold too. They will not mail us the publication, they will have someone from the local Kingdom Hall (their church) deliver it. When they come, they will walk us through the book and look to start a study with us. If we want to win them over to our side, this is the best way, as we would have them all to ourselves in our home, going over doctrinal positions. It is best to make this stipulation, though, “I will study your book with you, but as you know, I believe differently, so along the way, I may raise objections, ask for more proof, as well as share how I see whatever we may be discussing.” They will agree to this stipulation because they always believe they have the upper hand.

The best approach is to agree where there is an agreement because believe it or not; there will be more agreement than one might imagine. When we come to points of disagreement, have them make their case, letting them get through the entire presentation and then undermine it with Scripture from their New World Translation. We can be prepared because they will give us a copy of the book to prepare for the study; they will also give us a New World Translation if we ask for one. As we prepare for the study, be prepared to be surprised because the Witness literature is excellent at using verses based on isolated reading sound as though they do support what is being said in their publications. Thus, we need to look the verses up three literal translations (NASB, ESV, and HCSB), we need to read the section of Scripture that the text is found in and look it up in a commentary volume. A superb, easy to read commentary volume set is Holman Old and New Testament Commentary Volumes. If there are translation issues, we need to investigate these. If there are textual issues, we need to examine these.

Once they arrive for the study, we should have our legal pad or our tablet right beside us with our information. Once we complete the study, let the Witness know that we take issue with some of the verses that they had used to support their position. Then, go through them one by one. It is as simple as that. If we share this information without asking them to defend against it, over the course of their study book (4-6 months), they will begin to doubt their position. One cannot sit through one correction after another over so many months and not begin to wonder about whether they are in the right religion. One thing that we do not want to do is what many of the cult books that undermine the Witnesses beliefs recommend, i.e., shock and awe. They want us to sit there, take a Witness belief, and methodically undermine it. This will not work; the Witness will not open, look in, or be a part of such a book. Even if we do not show them the book, they will walk out if the situation looks like an assault on their faith. I apologize for this analogy, but one can cook an animal alive if they turn up the heat slowly enough. If we walk through a couple of their books over an extended period, it will be so slow of an undermining that it will not be an affront, an assault.

Review Questions

How can we effectively communicate the truth to Muslims?

How can we effectively communicate the truth to Atheists?

How can we effectively communicate the truth to Jewish persons?

How can we effectively communicate the truth to Jehovah’s Witnesses?

[1] Epignosis is a strengthened or intensified form of gnosis (epi, meaning “additional”), meaning, “true,” “real,” “full,” “complete” or “accurate,” depending upon the context. Paul and Peter alone use epignosis.

[2] http://www.christianpublishers.org/apps/webstore/products/show/5749263

[3] Zondervan (2010-06-19). Life’s Ultimate Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy . Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[4] Islam – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam (accessed September 14, 2015).

[5] [Ar islām submission (to the will of God)] 1817.—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eleventh ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003

[6] (Arab. Allāh, a contraction of al-Ilāh, “the God”)—The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 749

[7] [Ar muslim, lit., one who submits (to God)] ca.1615—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eleventh ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003

[8] Anno Hegirae, year of the flight

[9] [Ar jihād] 1869: a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty also: a personal struggle in devotion to Islam esp. involving spiritual discipline—ibid.

[10] [Ar Ramaḍān] ca. 1595: the ninth month of the Islamic year observed as sacred with fasting practiced daily from dawn to sunset—ibid.

[11] [caliphe, Ar khalīfa successor] 14c: a successor of Muhammad as temporal and spiritual head of Islam —ibid.

[12] As the Sunni are in the vast majority, this worldview will largely reflect their belief system. The hadith is the narrative record of the sayings or customs of Muhammad and his companions; and the collective body of traditions relating to Muhammad and his companions.—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eleventh ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003

[13] The hadith is the narrative record of the sayings or customs of Muhammad and his companions; and the collective body of traditions relating to Muhammad and his companions.—Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Eleventh ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003

[14] Shariah law is the immensely detailed body of rules and regulations, instructions for religious practice and daily life.—A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Islam. Pewsey, Wiltshire: Isaac Publishing, 2001, p. 19.

[15] Suras 2:190-193, 2:216, 2:244, 3:56, 3:151, 4:56, 4:74, 4:76, 4:89, 4:91, 4:95, 4:104, 5:51, 5:32-38, 7:96-99, 8:12-14, 8:39, 8:60, 8:65, 9:5, 9:14, 9:23-30, 9:38-41, 9:111, 9:123, 22:18-22, 25:52, 47:4, 47:35, 48:16, 48:29, 61:4, and 66:8-10.

[16] Hooper, Simon. “The rise of the New Atheists”. CNN. Retrieved 16 March 2010.

[17] “Census 2011: religion, race and qualifications – see how England & Wales have changed”. The Guardian.

[18] New Atheism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_atheism (accessed September 15, 2015).

[19] Christopher Hitchens was the author of God Is Not Great and was named among the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine. In addition, Hitchens served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America.

[20] Richard Dawkins is the author of The God Delusion, which was preceded by a Channel 4 television documentary titled The Root of all Evil? He is also the founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

[21] Harris is the author of the bestselling non-fiction books, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, as well as two shorter works initially published as e-Books, Free Will and Lying. Harris is a co-founder of the Reason Project.

[22] Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Breaking the Spell and many others, has also been a vocal supporter of The Clergy Project, an organization that provides support for clergy in the US who no longer believe in God, and cannot fully participate in their communities any longer.

[23] Christopher Hitchens’ Religion and Political Views | The .., http://hollowverse.com/christopher-hitchens/ (accessed September 15, 2015).

[24] On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Mar 1, 2010) by William Lane Craig and Lee Strobel; Reasonable Faith (3rd edition): Christian Truth and Apologetics (Jun 15, 2008) by William Lane Craig; Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors (Aug 1, 2009) by William Lane Craig and Paul Copan; Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics (Mar 1, 2012) by William Lane Craig and Paul Copan

[25] God’s Undertaker (Feb 18, 2011) by John Lennox; Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science (Aug 23, 2011) by John Lennox; God and Stephen Hawking (Feb 18, 2011) by John Lennox; Gunning for God (Oct 21, 2011) by JOHN C. LENNOX

[26] Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design (Jun 3, 2014) by Stephen C. Meyer; Signature in the Cell (Jun 23, 2009) by Stephen C. Meyer

[27] I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Mar 15, 2004) by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek; Christian Apologetics (May 15, 2013) by Norman L. Geisler; Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options (Jan 1, 2010) by Norman L. Geisler; The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation (Jun 1, 2008) by Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe

[28] A TIME TO SPEAK: PRACTICAL TRAINING for the CHRISTIAN PRESENTER Authored by Judy Salisbury, Foreword by Josh McDowell

http://www.christianpublishers.org/apps/webstore/products/show/5943504

[29] BASICS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM: Helpful or Harmful? [Second Edition] F. David Farnell, Thomas Howe, Thomas Marshall, Benjamin Cocar, Dianna Newman

http://www.christianpublishers.org/apps/webstore/products/show/5346435

[30] http://thevalleygirlapologist.blogspot.com/

[31] http://www.pearceyreport.com/about.php

[32] http://sciencereasonfaith.com/

[33] http://www.hieropraxis.com/

[34] http://www.lesliekeeney.com/

[35] http://www.doubtlessfaith.com/learning-center.html

[36] http://graniteapologists.com/

[37] http://pamelachristianministries.com/

[38] http://justifiedfaith.com/

[39] Top 10 Challenges Christian Students Face in College | eNews .., http://www.cedarville.edu/eNews/ParentPrep/2012/Challenges-Christian-Students-Fa (accessed September 15, 2015).

[40] The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church | Christianity Today, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/november/27.40.html (accessed September 15, 2015).

[41] Craig, William Lane (2010-03-01). On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Kindle Locations 267-274). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.

[42] http://www.christianpublishers.org/suffering-evil-why-god

[43] http://www.christianpublishers.org/why-is-life-so-unfair

[44] This author has accomplished this several times with ones who have left the faith. They bought out the time and over an extended period, they finally saw their way out of the long years of darkness, and the light of God’s Word was eventually a welcome sight.

[45] Or people

[46] This is a reverential fear of displeasing God because of one’s great love for him. It is not a dreadful fear.

[47] I.e., does what is right

[48] Matt. 15:30-31; 20:28; John 4:34; 5:19, 27, 30; 6:38, 40; 7:16-17; 17:1-2; Acts 2:22

[49] Towns, Elmer (2011-10-30). AMG Concise Bible Doctrines (AMG Concise Series) (Kindle Locations 960-965). AMG Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[50] Paul raises such issues in 1 Cor. 7:17–24; 8–11; and Rom. 14–15. While not rejecting Jewish worship forms, he did not regard them as required. His approach parallels Jesus’.

[51] Or instruction or teaching

[52] http://www.christianpublishers.org/suffering-evil-why-god

[53] I.e., mighty power

[54] Crucifixion or Cruci-Fiction ? (genesis, quotes, baptize .., http://www.city-data.com/forum/religion-spirituality/507377-crucifixion-cruci-fi (accessed September 16, 2015).

[55] An auxiliary pioneer is a Witness, who spends 50-hours a month out evangelizing. A regular pioneer is a Witness, who spends 70-hours a month out evangelizing. It used to be 70-hours for the auxiliary and 90 hours for the regular pioneer. They also have a special pioneer that spends 120 hours a month.

[56] Jehovah’s Witnesses

25 Columbia Heights

BROOKLYN NY 11201-2483

UNITED STATES

+1 718-560-5000

APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM – Effectively Communicating the Truth to Others 1 Timothy 2:3-4 Updated American Standard Version (UASV) 3 This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, …