[HBBC:8] Socialism

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium's (HBBC) eighth post. Yeah, it has been two months since we started! :)  Meet the members here.

This week's topic is Socialism, chosen by Noor El Terk. Please, make sure to check the other members' posts. You won’t be disappointed. ;)

This week’s post is going to be a scholar post. Since I’m no expert in economics or political science, I am only going to state some points from the sources I’ve read to gather information about this topic. No personal opinions involved.

The Story of Socialism: The Man, The Theory and The Utopia.

Karl Marx, trained Hegelian philosophy, produced a theory consisting of 3 interrelated elements: a theory of economics, a theory of social class, and theory of history.

Economic Theory       Marx concentrated on profit. Workers produce goods and services but get only paid for a fraction of the value of what they produce. The capitalist owners skim off the rest (profit). Workers are paid too little to buy the products they have made, resulting in repeated overproduction which leads to depression.

Marx predicted that there will be a depression so big the capitalist system would collapse, then socialism will come next and we should all ‘aid in its coming’.  (This was in the 19^th century when liberalism was dominant).

Marx wrote not as a scholar but as a revolutionist. Socialists with their leading thinker Karl Marx wanted to overthrow the capitalist system.

The Communist Manifesto, the pamphlet of Karl Marx’s idea published in 1848, was concluded with the famous ringing words: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all countries, unite!". Proletarians are the workers.

Socialism? "Communist" Manifesto? Hmmm..

Socialism        Marx actually focused on the malfunctions of capitalism he only specified socialism to be a just, productive society without class distinctions. Just in the distribution of goods and services. He only said that socialism would be much better than capitalism; however, the workings and procedures to deliver economic justice among people were vague.

Communism   Marx then stated that at a certain stage, when industrial production was very high, the socialist society will turn into communism.  Communism to Marx was “a perfect society, without police, money, or even government”. Goods will be in such plenty that people will just take what they need. There will be no private property, so there will be no need for police. Since there will be no class distinctions, there will be no need for governments, which are instruments of class domination. Communism was more of a political ideology than an economic theory. Communism was the utopia of socialism.

So, what is socialism we’ve been hearing about all these years?

The vague procedures of serving economic justice in the manifesto enabled socialist thinkers to put forward their own vision of socialism. This has ranged from welfarism of social democratic parties, to anarcho-syndicalism, to Lenin’s and Stalin’s hypercentralized tyranny, to Mao’s self-destructive permanent revolution, to Trotsky’s denunciation of same, to Tito’s experimental decentralized system, to 3agaby!!! All claim to espouse “real” socialism. Maybe this is why eventually socialist and communist systems were splinted in history.

One last note..

Since most of  us are tweeps, then you must have come across a lot of “activists” who promote socialism and claim that they are #LeftistAndProud. What is the relation between leftists and socialism?

“In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for an egalitarian (equal) society. They usually involve a concern for those in society who are disadvantaged relatively to others and the assumption that there are unjustified inequalities (which right-wing politics view as natural or sacred) that should be reduced or abolished.

The term was then applied to a number of revolutionary movements, especially socialism, anarchism and communism as well as more reformist movements like social democracy and social liberalism.”  Wikipedia

Reference: Michael G. Roskin. Political Science: An Introduction.

Disclaimer

I would like to apologize for disappearing from the writing arena the past couple of weeks. I was planning on writing this week's HBBC topic, but due to the current situation in Egypt I can't concentrate on anything. The feeling of  deep sorrow and regret  are consuming me on what we have reached. 


My deep condolences for every family who has lost a beloved one due to injustice and sadistic power holders.


Speechless.

[HBBC:3] عقدة الخواجة

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium‘s (HBBC) third post. Meet the members here.This week’s topic is 3o2det al Khawaga عقده الخواجه, chosen by Deppy.

Please, make sure to check the other members' posts. You won’t be disappointed. ;)

يا اخواني... با النافوخ بتاع انا !! – الخواجة بيجو

لفظ الخواجة ده كيوت موت! أول ما يجي اللفظ ده بأفتكر مانويل جوزيه! (مدرب فريق الأهلي الريد ديفلز وينطق خوزيه)

هايبقى بايخ قوي و"أيرونك" لو الموضوع ده متكتبش بالمصري..

خلوني أوضح حاجة كده: اللي  هايقول مش بيعاني من عقدة الخواجة واحد من اتنين: يا إما بيضحك على نفسه.. يا إما بيضحك على نفسه جامد.

الفشخرة والعنجهية جزء من حياتنا كبني آدمين (شئ غير مقتصر على المصريين), سواء أكانت عن طريق لبس معين ..أكل معين .. طريقة كلام معينة وهكذا... والحالة النفسية دي موجودة في كل بلد وفي جميع الأزمنه..  

مش هاتكلم عن أصل الكلمة ولا أسباب هذه الظاهرة وعلى عن علاقتها بالعنصرية أو مفهوم المواطنة والاستعمار والتاريخ والعولمة .. فاكس!

بس أحب أفكركم بحاجة كده

}اعلموا أنما الحياة الدنيا لعب ولهو وزينة وتفاخر بينكم وتكاثر في الأموال والأولاد كمثل غيث أعجب الكفار نباته ثم يهيج فتراه مصفرا ثم يكون حطاما وفي الآخرة عذاب شديد ومغفرة من الله ورضوان وما الحياة الدنيا إلا متاع الغرور{ - سورة الحديد آية رقم 20

يعني المشكلة مش مشكلة  خواجات على قد ما هي مشكلة بنبحث على حاجة نتفاخر ونتمنظر بيها..

الشعب المصري من أظرف الشعوب التى تتجلى فيها أسمى معاني العقد النفسية .. أنا هاتكلم عن تجربتي النهاردة مع عقده الخواجات..

في طريقي إلى الجامعة اليوم قررت أني أرصد جميع مظاهر هذه العقدة الطبقية! لاحظت أني من كتر العقدة دي ماهي ترسخت عندنا أصبحنا لا ندركها لأنها ترسخت ك"فاكت"

4 سنوات في الجامعة رايح جاي.. والنهاردة بس لاحظت التالي:

أسماء المحلات:

 ترسخت في ثقافتنا ألفاظ  ك"مول" "سنتر" و "ماركيت" وأصبحت جزاً من لغتنا

فتلاقي مثلاً:  شعبولا كيدز! و الزعبلاوي سنتر!! قمه العبث!

وأصبح من العادي ان أسماء المحلات الأصلي يكون بالإنجليزية ولا يترجم للعربية فتلاقي مثلاً: سيتي ستارز .. فندق مون لايت.. سيتي مول.. دريم بارك.. تويز آر أص! والأمثله كثيرة لا تعد ولا تحصى

الجامعة:

الجامعة معروفة بأنها تضم "كولكشن" متألق من الشباب المصري العصري والرجعي..

فلفت نظري اليوم عدد لا بأس به من تي شرتات الرجل الخارق "سوبر مان" و  بوب الإسفنجة ذا السروال المربع "سبونج بوب سكوير بانتس"

الصراحة معرفتش أصنف هل ده عقدة خواجة؟ أم طفولة مشردة؟ أم مرقعة؟.. ما علينا

البلد:

وأنا أجلس في وسط مهرجان اللبس البوهيمي المار أمامي.. إذا بالصاعقة الكبري..

ده العقده دي مش بس على المستوى الفردي.. ده حتى البلد نفسها عندها عقدة الخواجة! وااحسرتاه!

فاكرين اخر مرة أوباما جه زار فيها مصر؟ فاكريين الأجواء الإحتفائيه به وإزاي كنا طايرين في السما لمّا إتكلم عربي وكأن اللغة العربية ازادات بريقاً عندما نطق هو بها؟

ونروح بعيد ليه؟

فاكرين زيارات مهاتيير محمد و رجب طيب أردوغان لمصر؟ ليس عيباً فيهم ولكننا من يأسنا هوينا التقليد الأعمى وانبهرنا به! ولعل هذا يرجع لعقدة الحرمان ..وما أكثر العقد والكلاكيع في المجتمع المصري.

وإذا أنا اُنهي آخر ما تبقى من "كريب الموتزاريلا" أفكر في نفسي  

هو يا ترى زمان باقي البلاد كان عندها عقدة خواجة من الفراعنة وكانوا بيلبسوا بواريك ستايل زييهم؟ همممم..

[HBBC:2] Forgive and Forget

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium's (HBBC) second post. Meet the members here.

This week's topic is Forgive and Forget, chosen by Noor Al Zubaidy. Please, make sure to check the other member’s posts. You won’t be disappointed. ;)

Forgive and forget, two completely different acts?

Most people will tell you the two words are somehow interrelated.  Poeple can forgive, or better, some can forgive and forget. But can someone forget and not forgive? Only in cases of Alzheimer maybe? Lol!

I remember once reading my horoscope character traits and one of them was that I can forgive but I can never forget. I have this theory about horoscopes … meh. Never mind.

When it comes to the whole spectrum of human emotions, no exact human feeling is completely explicable.

“Ling Ling finds a wallet on the ground filled with money. She takes the wallet to the address on the driver’s license but keeps the money inside the wallet.

Donnie:  I-I’m sorry Mrs. Farmer. I don’t get this.
Kitty Farmer: Just place an X on the Life Line in the appropriate place.
Donnie: No, I mean I know what to do, I just don’t get this. You can’t just lump things into two categories. Things aren’t that simple.
Kitty Farmer: The Life Line is divided that way.
Donnie: Life isn’t that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.
Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.
Donnie: Okay. But you’re not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can’t just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else.“

So, what does this have to do with forgiveness? That’s exactly the point. Forgiveness is an emotion and human emotions can seem irrelevant, interrelated, disconnected and reticulated.

To forgive or not to forgive: that is the question. What exactly is forgiveness? An emotion of indefinite different feelings according to many different people having the choice of coursing different perspectives of this emotion.

Forgiveness for me is a matter of willingness to understand and a couple of other interrelated irrelevant emotions. Forgetfulness is one of them. But personally, I believe justice is the core of the whole spectrum of forgiveness as an emotion. Justice represented in the act of penance: confession, repentance and penalty. But again, not all situations are the same to even an individual human’s spectrum of emotions.

Allow me to elaborate why I believe justice is the core of forgiveness. I’ll illustrate two different personal experiences.

Example One: A dear friend’s parent died. I only knew a month later. None of my friends told me and I was outraged. I couldn’t look at that dear friend’s eye. I was very ashamed I was the last person to condolence her. Did I forgive my friends for not informing me about critical news like that?

Okay, so first, I was outraged! I was like how could you forget telling me something like that?! Grudge is not a bearable emotion to hold. All I needed was justice for an act of forgetfulness that caused me not to be with a friend in need. Willingness to understand; willingness to understand it was not intended and other friends’ willingness to understand why I was outraged. Penance; the act of showing they are sorry, even without pronouncement.

This is an incident between people having social interactions in a social situation. Forgetfulness could occur voluntarily or involuntarily .. doesn’t matter as long as it is not associated with the feeling of grudge.

Example Two: 30 years of repression, poverty and corruption. You know what I am getting at. No need for more explanation.

Did you feel the sorrow in that sentence? When justice is not served, the emotion of grudge develops to deep sorrow that could be later translated to vengeance.

In situations like this, forgiveness is not necessarily granted to the criminal. Here, forgiveness is translated into getting that sense of peace occurring due to justice. You will not forgive the past 30 years’ acts but you can move on. The sense of sorrow is gone.. you can finally forgive yourself for letting something like that happen. Forgiveness, here, is to let go of that sense of guilt and defeat.

To forget or not to forget doesn’t matter. As long as the taste of bitterness of sorrow is not felt, everything will be okay.

Human emotions are unwritten.. period.

[HBBC:1] Self-love

Welcome to The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium‘s (HBBC) first post, where Nema, Maha Mohamed,Ammar Al-Majali, Rana Safi, Maryam, Yara Hani, Noha Hanafy, Noor Al Zubaidy, Nouran Ziad, Noor El terk, Salima Al Masrouri, Mariam Tarek, Sara Amr, Yasmine Fayez, Rania Khaled, Ibhog, Hagar Haggag, Abeer Zaki, Yomna Arbad, Salma M San, My Essam and I voice our opinions about a weekly topic chosen by any HBBC member. This weekend’s topic is Self-love, chosen by Nema.

There are numerous self-nouns, but there is some mystical appeal to the word ‘love’. Ai or Koi (for opposite sex) in Japanese. The word ‘Love’ is very sacred in Japan. In fact some Japanese have never used the phrase “I Love You” because of its profound meaning. They express their affection to something according to the nature of object of affection. For example, the word ‘aidokusho’ means one’s favorite book, ‘aikokushin’ patriotism, ‘hakuai’ philanthropy and ‘hatsukoi’ meaning first love. If you noticed all words contain either ai or koi. Don’t you just love how they related love to patriotism and philanthropy?

Anyway, enough straying away from the main topic. To be honest, I don’t know how to tackle such a topic. I mean, what is self-love anyways?

Brainstorming for the topic, I got the weirdest set of unrelated thoughts. Since, till now, I have no clear vision of what self-love is and how it can be tackled as a topic; I will only share some of the tattered thoughts I had.

Self-love.. Is it good or bad?

When I asked this question on Twitter I got the following answer,

“Depends..”

“Good when it becomes a motive to urself to be a better person in the way u act In life and with others, which is normal self-love… and it turns into ugly when u love urself more than anything in life "being selfish" and therefore, u may do bad things 2 be NO1”

And when I asked about how could someone love oneself adequately, I got this answer, “well, I think no one can love him/herself adequately cuz we all love ourselves more than others. But wait, we can work on this behavior to be in an acceptable form. i.e. Trying to invest that power of self-love only to do the appropriate things to our life. Without trying to do bad things to others to be better than them. Just to give us the necessary power to go ahead.” @AhmedR2fat on twitter.

There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else! – Donnie Darko.

Self-love = Self-appreciation? Self-esteem? Self-awareness? Selfishness?

… 

Sydney Carton

Remember that drunkard, self-pitying character from Dickens’ novel: A Tale of Two Cities? Can self-love be traded for somebody else’s love?  What if a person can’t love himself? What makes a person love/hate himself/herself?  Others’ praise? Self-praise? Love?

Sydney Carton substituted self-love for Lucie’s love. Sydney sure wasted his life; did other kids’ homework and didn’t do his; lived his entire life as a Jackal, but for those who believe, life isn’t the end of the story.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Could we compensate self-love for bigger causes and have significant ends for our lives? Do we have to sacrifice self-love to have that best rest like Sydney’s?

Sheldon Cooper

WTH?? I can’t control the flow of thoughts in mind, duh! Sheldon is a self-loving creature. The ‘bad’ type though.

So, love yourselves but not too much. Be number one but don’t take it for granted. Dream big, but be realistic. Be optimistic but don’t get too carried away with optimism. If only life was as meaningful as words spoken..or written.

This post is unrelated and sluggish but so are my thoughts. Please take the time to read what my half-baked buddies had posted about this topic. You won’t be disappointed. :)

HBBC - The Half-Baked Bloggers Consortium

Yes. I have joined a writers' consortium. Yeah, I know I'm not that good. Yeah, I know I'm not up to their level. No, I don't think I'll regret taking that step.

Why?

New experience.

Why?

To stimulate me to write.

Why?

To improve my writing skills.

Why?

To influence and be influenced.

Why?

A path to pursuit significance in life.

Meet my half-baked buddies! --> HBBC

Never Was, Never Will Be

"Jimmy shoes busted both his legs, trying to learn to fly

From a second story window, he just jumped and closed his eyes

His momma said he was crazy - he said, "Momma, I've got to try.

Don't you know that all my heroes died?

And I guess I'd rather die than fade away."

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a hero is (a) a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability (b) a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities.

Do heroes really exist? What does a man have to do to become a hero? What is a hero to an ‘ordinary’ man?

Well, all that has nothing to do with this blog post! Meh! :P

I started reading this book for Youssef Zidane: “Kalmiaat” (Words) in which he reflects on some words and phrases that are used in our age..

The Second Chapter: خَبَرٌ (‘Apprise’ or more precisely ‘Report’) talks about history. According to Ibn Khaldun, history is not a matter of a sequence of facts, it is more of someone’s ‘report’ or ‘documentation’ of one of the events that took place in some past time. Some are well-known and some are veiled or hidden ‘between the folds of time’. History for Ibn Khaldun is merely reports written by others that could behold truth and falseness.

One of Ibn Khaldun’s concepts is that we have to work our minds when it comes to history reports. ""ينبغي علينا إعمال العقل في الخبر

Intrigued? Let me tell you, what’s coming next is even more intriguing ..

“You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole.”

Without further introduction, the writer presents two famous ‘historical events’

First: The Battle of Qadish

"هذه (الكلمة) هي اسم لموقعة حربية شهيرة جرت في الأزمنة القديمة, وهي في الأصل إسم بلده تقع على نهر العاصي بالقرب من مدينة حلب الحالية.. المفترض أن موقعة قادش هذه انتصر فيها رمسيس الثاني على الحيثيين سنة 1285 قبل الميلاد..

.. وأشهر (خبر) عن هذه الموقعة وصلنا مرسوماً على جدران معابد مصرية قديمة, في الصورة المشهورة التى يظهر فيها رمسيس الثاني وهو يلقي بسهامه من فوق عجلة حربية ينطلق بها حصانان رشيقان, وقد تناثر على الأرض القتلى من أعدائه"

“Qadish,” the word, is the name of a famous battle that took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramsis II and the Hittite Empire  at the city of Qadish on the Orontes River. Ramsis II was/is alleged to have won this battle 1285 B.C.

This alleged victory of Ramsis II was ‘reported’ or ‘pictured’ on the walls of famous Egyptian temples; showing Ramsis II courageously holding is bow and arrow in the face of his enemies, riding on his two brisk horses and his enemies’ corpses shattered around him.

Applying Ibn Khaldun’s concept of working of the mind, we notice that Ramsis II was drawn 

alone; no army in the picture; no charioteers for the king’s chariot (a chariot cannot be controlled by only one person)..Looks like the victory belongs to one person.. hmmm…

"أول ما يلفت النظر فى هذه الصورة/ الخبر ، هو أن رمسيس الثانى مرسومٌ وحده. فلا الجيش المصرى موجودٌ فى الصورة، ولا حتى سائق العربة الحربية، الذى كانت مهمته التحكُّم فى العربة، لإفساح المجال أمام الرماة لإطلاق السهام . لاشئ فى الصورة إلا رمسيس الثانى، والمغلوبون من الحيثيين. وكأن هذا النصر، هو فعلُ شخصٍ واحد: ملكٍ، هو الملكُ الوحيد! ثم جاءت قصائد الشاعر المصرى القديم بنتاأور لتؤكِّد النصر الساحق لرمسيس الثانى، على ملك خيتا وجيشه من الحيثيين، الذين كانوا أيامها يسكنون آسيا الوسطى "

Reminds you of someone? Starting to grab what I’m getting at?

"وفى واقع الأمر، فإن قادش لم تكن نصراً مؤزَّراً لرمسيس الثانى على الحيثيين. بل إن رمسيس الثانى حوصر هناك، لأنه تَهَّور وتقدَّم عن جيشه بحاميةٍ صغيرة، فأحاط به جيشُ الحيثيين. ولم ينقذه منهم، إلا طلابُ المدرسة الحربية المصرية بمدينة (حلب) الذين كانوا فى طريقهم للترحيب بقدومه! وعاونه هؤلاء الشباب حتى خرج من مأزقه، وفلت من الأسر أو الموت. ومن بعد ذلك، تقاتل الجيشان سنواتٍ طوال، حتى عقد رمسيس الثانى مع ملك (خيتا) معاهدة صلح شبيهة بكامب ديفيد"

The truth is Qadish was never a victory for Ramsis II. As a matter of fact, other -more credible- documentations state that Ramsis II was tricked by two Hittite spies and fell in a trap, where he lost a whole army division, and was in a desperate fight for his life when a couple of students from the Military School deployed and attacked the overextended and tired Hittite chariots! The Egyptians were seemingly victorious in the war though they never took the city!! A peace treaty was signed by both sides resembling the Camp David Peace Treaty in modern history.

Fun fact: Egyptologists like Christiane Desroches and Kenneth Kitchen discovered Hittite documents stating the smashing victory of the Hittites’ king in the Battle of Qadish!!!

Déjà vu, I know. God knows if it weren’t for the revolution, the picture of Mubarak as a hero in the October War would have been stuck for how many years to come!!

You may think: So what! Ramsis II was never a hero to me! He was never to me, too. But Hold on, this chapter has not ended yet. The veiled history of the fore coming heroes is even more disappointing.

To be continued ..