Fishawi, Jeddah: Teaching Arabic

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of

Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from

McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

Actually this painting is probably of the fishermen with their dhows here in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, not on the Jeddah Side, where Fishawi Coffee Shop in Maidan Al-Bai'a is.

The connection with learning is with the "Poetry House," in Bahrain, the restored house of the Bahraini poet Ibrahim Al-Arrayyed.  He corresponded with the poets of the Nahda, and I was reminded of my original interest in the writers of this period in Arabic, Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Taha Hussein, Fadwa Touqan, May Ziadeh, Mikha'il Nu'aimi, whom I read at Shemlan.  Thinking of these, I made the "Philosophy of Teaching" essay below:

Philosophy of Teaching,

From my perception as a long-time tourist-archaeologist in the Arabic-speaking countries, I see Arabic literature and art as being a continuation and elaboration of the humanist tradition of the Greeks and Romans, with a dash of Iranian and African spice.

I believe that in teaching Arabic, it is important to make frequent references to the important transmission and elaboration of the discoveries of the Greeks to the universities and the merchant class of the 12^th century and onwards in Europe, and (Ben Franklin’s) America.  In France, and, I believe, in England and Italy, too; students learned Arabic from anthologies of great pieces of Arabic writing, just as my third year Arabic teacher,  Andras Hamori at Princeton shared his doctoral work with us.  I remember he simply photocopied the Amr Al-Qais poem we studied from Chrestomathie Arabe, the University of Paris Sorbonne Arabic anthology, which even included the proclamations in Arabic, written by Paris scholars, for Napoleon’s 1798 campaign in Egypt.

Thus, even in beginning Arabic classes, with the modern, “communicative style” textbooks, I like to supplement these texts with some things the students could read seriously, translating word for word, and think about:  passages from Matta bin Younis’ 9^th century Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, for example, or the from Mas’oudi’s 10^th century history(al-Murug al-Dhahab) where he mentions the pre-Socratics of Miletus.

Universal “humanist” Arabic writing, even as simple quotations--for example, a phrase from Soliman Bustani’s 19^th century translation of the Iliad, from the Arabic original of Burton’s Arabian Nights translation, or from a play or poem by the Levantine and African writers of the 1930’s through 70’s “Nahda,” (Renaissance)--makes the Arabic class not just an exoticism, but a basis for the student and teacher to familiarize themselves with humanist thought in general.

As a refreshing, almost comic relief, I delight in teaching “getting-around-the-town,” or colloquial Arabic, as an important way of absorbing, and actually using classical Arabic vocabulary.  I am able to add my experience in Egyptian, Lebanese, and Saudi colloquial to teaching the colloquial in tandem with the classical Arabic.  In the colloquial, too, there is a rich humanist tradition on which I can tap as a teacher:  Bairam Al-Tunisisi’s poems in colloquial, Tawfiq al-Hakim’s and Ghassan Kanafani’s “colloquial in quotes,” and “classical-with-a-Palestinian-colloquial rhythm,” for example.

On the more specifics of minute by minute teaching, I have a whole panoply of English-Arabic grammar comparisons, whiteboard talk and tape-recorder listening-speaking teaching methods developed from my years of teaching English to Arabs.  Learning a foreign language is always a way of improving one’s own language, and my experience in explaining English nuances to Arabic speakers puts me in a good position to make studying Arabic a source of better understanding and use of one’s own language.

            

Cafe de Flore, Paris an account of gallantry

Tonight, we think of the pleasant Ramadan evenings in Fishawi, Cairo;  but in the Cafe de Flore we talk of the courage and determination of the Egyptian people, including women in the Tahrir demonstrations who come to "outnumber" the dwindiling pro-Morsi protests.  Women have often been attacked by the Morsi thugs, as noted in the caption to this picture in the Militant:

                                       

AP/Amr Nabil

July 5 mobilization in Cairo’s Tahrir Square marks fall of Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi. Zinab al-Saghier, front, lost eye during recent clash with Morsi supporters.

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of

Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from

McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

The talk at Cafe de Flore tonight is on the grace and gallantry of these massive rejections in Egypt of the strictness and dour nature of the Muslim Brotherhood government.  This article from the militant which just came on line early Saturday morning, July 13 has just the right tone of inspiration and optimism...

Vol 77/No. 28 July 22, 2013 (the Militant came out early today because they are going the the active workers conference in Oberlin, Ohio this weekend.)

 
(front page)
Millions celebrate ouster
of Islamist gov’t in Egypt Workers defend space to organize, fight

BY SETH GALINSKY  
Millions of people across Egypt are celebrating the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government, having succeeded in defending the political space opened by the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship less than two and a half years ago.

In the midst of massive protests, the military high command ousted Morsi on July 3, arresting him and other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and shutting down much of the group’s media. They suspended the new Islamist constitution — pushed through by the Morsi government at the end of last year — that had become a source of contention with both workers and competing factions of the capitalist class.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest capitalist party in the country, organized large actions to defend Morsi’s government. Clashes took place between Morsi supporters and opponents in Cairo, Alexandria and other parts of the country. Residents of Cairo’s Manial neighborhood told the Arab news service Al Arabiyathat they saw Brotherhood supporters armed with automatic weapons, machetes and sticks.
When military helicopters flew over Tahrir Square June 30 dropping Egyptian flags, demonstrators cheered the army’s signal they would back the protests against attempts by the Brotherhood to drown them in blood. “We don’t have the weapons the Brotherhood has,” Karam Youssef, owner of a small bookshop in a Cairo suburb, told the Militant by phone July 7. “We couldn’t defeat them on our own. It would have been chaos.
“There were people from all aspects of society at Tahrir Square — middle-class, working-class, poor people and lots of women,” said Youssef. “Millions of people were in the streets all over the country, more even than during the protests against Mubarak.”
The protests, initiated by Tamarod (Rebel), a group of young people who had collected 22 million signatures demanding Morsi’s resignation, were fueled by the deteriorating Egyptian economy, government attempts to put a lid on growing labor struggles, opposition to the Brotherhood’s attempt to impose their sectarian vision of Sunni Islam on political and social life and anger over violent attacks by Brotherhood thugs.
In the last few weeks before Morsi was ousted, a nationwide fuel shortage caused long waits at gas stations and rolling electricity blackouts affected millions, especially in working-class neighborhoods.
Workers take advantage of space

Working people have been able to take advantage of the space opened up by Mubarak’s overthrow and the ensuing conflicts among competing capitalist factions to begin organizing themselves to defend their interests. The power struggle among the propertied rulers — represented by the army on one hand and the Muslim Brotherhood on the other — only sharpened, while labor battles, political discussions and efforts to organize among the toilers grew.

Protest actions, from sit-ins to strikes and demonstrations, mushroomed from just under 200 a month during Mubarak’s last year to more than 1,000 a month recently. The rulers’ hopes, including among the military high command, that a Brotherhood-led government would have better success than they had in putting an end to these struggles, were dashed.
“Workers still face the same old problems,” Mohamad Ahmad Salem, a spokesperson of the Egyptian Democratic Labor Congress, said by phone from Mahalla, before Morsi’s ouster. “The police are still raiding meetings of workers trying to organize unions and the number of detained workers has increased.”
“The number of workers in unions has at least doubled since Mubarak was overthrown,” Fatma Ramadan, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, told the Militant July 1 from Cairo.
Last December Morsi forced through a new constitution that restricted democratic rights, union organization and freedom of worship. It passed with the participation of less than one-third of eligible voters.
“We didn’t get rid of a military regime to replace it with a fascist theocracy that enforces extremist regulations in the name of religion,” 12-year-old Ali Ahmed told Egypt’s El Wady newspaper at a protest last October.
Capitalist factions jockey for power

After Morsi was arrested and his government dispersed, the military high command appointed Adly Mansour, head of the High Constitutional Court, as interim president. At first the National Salvation Front reported that Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, would be named prime minister. But the Nour party, a Salafist Islamic group that broke with Morsi in the midst of the mass protests, objected.

On July 8, while various factions were still vying for their share of power, more than 50 supporters of the Brotherhood demanding Morsi’s return were killed when soldiers and police opened fire on a sit-in in front of the Republican Guard headquarters, where they believe Morsi is being held.
According to the Financial Times, the military has set in motion corruption investigations of Muslim Brotherhood-owned businesses, including those of Khairat al-Shataer, a real estate and textile mogul.
The Egyptian military is itself the largest single employer in the country, owning a wide range of businesses, real estate and factories.
On July 9 Mansour appointed former Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi prime minister and ElBaradei as vice president for foreign relations. Mansour issued a “road map” for writing a new constitution and holding parliamentary and presidential elections over the next five to six months.
White House failed to broker deal

For decades Washington has backed the military and a succession of dictatorial regimes in Egypt to promote capitalist stability in the region. After Mubarak’s fall, the Barack Obama administration continued to send some $1.3 billion a year in aid to the army, while seeking collaborative relations with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Obama has released one statement since Morsi’s overthrow, calling on the Egyptian military “to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government” and to “avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsy and his supporters.” Many in Egypt view Obama as a supporter of the Brotherhood regime, while Brotherhood supporters feel betrayed. Widespread distrust or hatred for Washington appears to have only increased on all sides.
According to the New York Times, the White House tried to broker a deal that would have allowed Morsi to remain president by bringing bourgeois opposition parties into the government. Morsi refused.
Meanwhile, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait announced plans July 9 to provide a total of $12 billion to the Egyptian government in hopes of stabilizing and shoring up whatever regime comes together — with the military as the perpetual main pillar of bourgeois rule. 

foreign and domestic news, you will have from McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit;

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of

Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from

McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

Please see my blog of 16/12/2012 for background to what they call now the "Anti-Morsi" protesters.

The massive demonstrations in Egypt are the Egyptian people opening up political space further and further, but they need protection from rough elements;  hance the Egyptian Army comes to the rescue.  We will see for a time the Army harking back to the Nasser era, which will repeat itself, just as Marx noted so brilliantly in 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. (télécharger la version française)

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara ...Foreign and domestic news from McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

On the thirtieth of June, I felt that the masses of Egyptian people were giving a resounding "No" to Islamicists.  I still think that; and today, on the 10th of July, as Ramadan starts and the Islamicists camping outside the Rabi' Al-Adawiya mosque to be fed for free and fast during the day, my hope is that the majority of Egyptians will celebrate in the evenings in the rest of Cairo, the way Egyptians have always done.  The BBC had a little snap shot of Lise Doucet, the Canadian on BBC, in the Khan Al-Khalili area in front of the "fanous" sellers. That reminded me of the tremendous festivity of Ramadan, which only the Egyptians know how to do.  The Syrians never quite got it.  Ramadan is dreary in Syria.  Indeed, the pictures of Homs, bombed to pieces, bombed out, from Bashar Al-Assad's crushing of the uprising there, are a telling commentary on the difference between Egypt and Syria.  

From my apartment

Mon journal politique est "de mon appartment," comme dans Addison and Steele.

De retour maintenant de Costa Coffee a la Tour Rossais, de Manama, je lis les nouvelles de l'Egypte.

From behind board of Electricity, Al-Rossais Tower, Manama, Bahrain: Italo-American Coffee Shop

Blog interessant en Arabe sur l'histoire et la culture de Bahrain et, ici sur la maison du poete, Ibrahim al Arayyeid:

J'avais appris l'existance de ce blog au Musee National de Bahrain, et, ici, un lien vers la maison du poete dans le quartier Al-Houra, a Manama.  Je n'ai pas pu trouve la maison.

Café Taht Essour et Opérations de terre café automatique, McNamara Terminal, Detroit

Snowdon toujours entre la Russie et l'Equador.  Mandela toujours vivant, mais c'est grave.
Ici dans la cantine des ouvriers de terre à l'aeroport de Détroit, maintenant, notre café est loin de Starbucks, Doha, pres de Dhahran en Arabie saoudite, et n'a tres peu en commun avec les "Cafés de la Méditerranée," sujet de ce blog.  Tout de meme, la Tunisie de Hadi Jouini (qui chante ici A'tifii اعطفي de Bairam at-Tunisi), et le Liban de Fairuz est dans nos esprits, par la radio.

Dans les annees 30, Hadi Jouini faisait partie des poetes et musicisens du cafe, Taht Essour, (voir Wikipedia) avec Bairam At-Tunisi, grand poete de la langue parlée d'Egypte.

Peut-être  la vu de son café, Taht Essour, ressemblais à ce photo de Sète, pres de Montpellier, en France:

McNamara Ground Operations Coffee Machine in break room, Detroit

And the BBC covers "Challenge Detroit" where young professionals can come in and "work" for NGO's.  How lucky I was to have lived in Detroit when there was still some important industry there.  The capitalists have all but moved out of Detroit, now.

Fishawi Coffee Shop, Cairo

J'appris au BBC que le premier ministre de l'Egypte, Mohammad Morsi, a placé comme gouverneur de Luxor, un membre des Frères Musulmans qui a participé dans le groupe qui a fait les attentats aux tourists de Luxor!  Bien sur les Luxorois se plaignent.

Cafe de Flore, Paris

Nouvelles de la galanterie du gouvernement socialiste de François Hollande:  avions de chasse contre les Touareg, pour garder les droits de le compagnie Volkswagen et son SUV "Touareg," qui vole le nom de ce peuple du désert.  Tout de même, les islamistes exagerent, comme toujours maintenant. 
L'islamisme nie la riche culture du moyen orient, en mettant en sa place une ignorance monotone et sans nuances.  Nallino serait outrage que les islamistes de Mali on confisque les manuscrits de l’université de Timbuktoo.

McNamara Ground Ops Coffee machine: Jan. 13, 2013 anti Israeli settlement protest dismatled

We heard today that Israel has dismatled the peaceful, non-violent protest against the Israeli settlements in the West bank.

At the same time Saudi Arabia has sent tents, blankets, and wheat to the Refugees from the fighting in Syria. Behind the scenes is the problem of Israel not allowing any Arabs into its borders or occupied West Bank.

McNamara Ground Operations Lunchroom Coffee machine, Detroit

How far from Cairo, but how close we are.  Comme nous sommes loin du Caire, mais comme nous sommes pres d'elle.


Articles du Militant en français
Le président égyptien
restreint les droits politiques Au milieu de manifestations de masse, les travailleurs
défendent l’espace pour s’organiser 
PAR SETH GALINSKY
Depuis le 22 novembre, lorsque le président égyptien Mohamed Morsi a décrété que toutes ses décisions étaient « définitives et contraignantes » jusqu’à ce qu’une nouvelle constitution soit adoptée, des centaines de milliers d’opposants et de partisans de son gouvernement ont participé à des manifestations concurrentes à travers le pays.
Mohamed Morsi, un dirigeant des Frères musulmans, a annoncé le 9 décembre qu’un référendum sur une nouvelle constitution codifiant des restrictions sur les droits démocratiques, les syndicats et la liberté de culte, aurait lieu le 15 décembre, ignorant les appels d’une série de partis d’opposition bourgeois et de nombreux syndicats pour que le vote soit reporté. Mohamed Morsi a déclaré qu’il avait autorisé l’armée à arrêter des civils pour maintenir « l’ordre public » jusqu’à ce que le vote soit terminé.
Mohamed Morsi a également modifié le décret stipulant que ses décisions ont force de loi et ne peuvent pas être portées en appel devant un tribunal, en affirmant que cela ne s’applique qu’aux « déclarations constitutionnelles. » Quelques jours plus tôt, il avait appelé à un dialogue avec les dirigeants de l’opposition.
Mohamed Morsi a été élu en juin suite à la déposition du dictateur Hosni Moubarak par l’armée en février 2011 après plusieurs semaines de protestations par des centaines de milliers de personnes inspirées par le mouvement qui a renversé la dictature de Ben Ali en Tunisie. Les protestations se sont poursuivies contre le régime militaire qui a remplacé Moubarak au début.
Sous prétexte de consolider la « révolution » et d’empêcher un retour au régime militaire direct, les Frères musulmans — le plus grand parti capitaliste du pays et le mieux organisé — essaient de réduire l’espace que les travailleurs ont conquis au cours de cette lutte.
Dans plusieurs villes, opposants et partisans des mesures se sont affrontés, faisant des morts et des blessés des deux côtés.
Préoccupé par une nouvelle série d’actions de masse à travers le pays, le président Barack Obama a appelé le président égyptien le 6 décembre et a « salué l’appel au dialogue avec l’opposition lancé par Mohamed Morsi, » selon un communiqué de presse de la Maison Blanche. « Il est essentiel pour les dirigeants égyptiens de toutes tendances politiques de mettre de côté leurs différences et de s’entendre sur une façon de faire progresser l’Égypte, » a-t-il dit. Mais les partis d’opposition ont rejeté l’appel à moins que le référendum ne soit reporté.
Bien que le projet de constitution utilise le mot « liberté » 42 fois, il limite la liberté d’expression en interdisant l’outrage aux prophètes ou aux individus. Il contient des dispositions qui sont très largement perçues comme un renforcement de l’application de la charia et qui limitent la liberté de culte. Cela permet le contrôle par l’État des finances de l’église chrétienne copte et l’élimination des protections pour les adeptes de la foi baha’ie. Environ 5,3 pour cent des 80 millions d’Égyptiens sont des chrétiens coptes.
Le projet de constitution compromet également le droit des travailleurs à s’organiser en précisant qu’un seul syndicat est autorisé « par profession. » Depuis le renversement de Moubarak, des centaines de nouveaux syndicats ont été formés, souvent en concurrence directe avec la fédération soutenue par l’État.
Le projet de constitution élimine une clause de l’ancienne constitution qui interdit la discrimination « sur la base du sexe, de l’origine, de la religion et de la foi. »
Poursuivant l’alliance difficile entre les Frères musulmans et le haut commandement militaire, la constitution autorise des procès militaires contre des civils ayant commis « des crimes qui touchent les forces armées » et garde le budget militaire secret. Les hauts responsables de l’armée sont un secteur clé de la classe capitaliste égyptienne. L’armée possède de grandes usines et des fermes, contrôlant entre 20 et 30 pour cent de l’économie du pays.
Les intérêts des travailleurs
« Les décrets du gouvernement ne sont clairement pas dans l’intérêt des travailleurs, » a déclaré au Militant Ibrahim Hamdi, un travailleur d’une usine textile appartenant à l’État à Mahalla El Kubra, lors d’une interview téléphonique le 8 décembre. « C’est pourquoi des milliers d’entre nous avons participé à des manifestations exigeant qu’ils soient abrogés. »Bien que la plupart des travailleurs des ateliers ne soient pas partisans des Frères musulmans, « Nous essayons de discuter avec ceux qui sont avec Morsi, de les rallier, » a-t-il dit.
« Nos principales exigences syndicales portent sur la sécurité au travail et des investissements publics pour remettre les machines en marche et ainsi embaucher plus de travailleurs, » a ajouté Ibrahim Hamdi, notant en passant que des milliers de travailleurs ont perdu leurs emplois au cours des dernières années.
« La constitution dit que les femmes doivent être protégées et ceci est vraiment inquiétant, » a dit au Militant Alea Murad, une jeune diplômée collégiale qui travaille dans une université au Caire. « Je suis une musulmane pratiquante mais les Frères déforment certains textes religieux pour les interpréter à leur manière. Ils veulent ramener des lois faisant qu’un mari peut décider si sa femme peut travailler ou non, si elle peut s’inscrire à l’université ou si elle peut voyager. Comme si ça ne suffisait pas que nous n’avons pas accès à beaucoup de domaines d’emplois. »
Alea Murad a dit que certains de ses proches, beaucoup d’ingénieurs ou de professeurs, sont partisans des Frères musulmans. « Avant que Mohamed Morsi soit élu, nous parlions beaucoup de nos désaccords, la discussion était plus acceptable. Mais maintenant, ses partisans deviennent de plus en plus haineux, » a-t-elle dit.
Le Front du salut national qui a été formé pour s’opposer aux mesures de Mohamed Morsi est dominé par des politiciens capitalistes. Il est dirigé par Mohamed el Baradei, l’ancien chef de l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique, organe de l’ONU, et dirigeant du Parti constitutionnel ; Amr Moussa, ancien chef de la Ligue arabe et à une certaine époque le ministre des Affaires étrangères de Moubarak; Al-Sayed al Badawy, le chef du Parti Wafd qui a joué le rôle d’opposition loyale durant le régime de Moubarak; et Hamden Sabbahi, le chef du Courant populaire nassériste.
Le front inclut aussi plusieurs groupes sociaux-démocrates et radicaux de la classe moyenne, incluant Al-Tagammu, le Parti d’alliance populaire socialiste et le Parti social-démocrate.
Le haut commandement militaire a essayé de se prétendre au-dessus de la mêlée. « Nous soutenons l’appel à un dialogue national pour atteindre un consensus qui unira tous les segments de la nation, » a déclaré le porte-parole des forces armées Ahmed Mohamed Ali le 8 décembre. « Les forces armées ont toujours assuré la sécurité de la nation et de son peuple. »
Depuis qu’il a pris le pouvoir, Mohamed Morsi a maintenu plusieurs des politiques issues autant de Moubarak que du régime militaire intérimaire qui a lui succédé immédiatement après sa chute. Et comme ses prédécesseurs, il a appelé les travailleurs à cesser de faire grève pour des salaires plus élevés et de meilleures conditions de travail.
Les Frères appuient l’austérité du FMI
Le premier ministre égyptien Hisham Kandil a entamé des négociations avec le Fonds monétaire international à propos des conditions d’un prêt de 4,8 milliards de dollars que le gouvernement de Mohamed Morsi a demandé afin d’atténuer les effets de la crise économique, incluant une baisse importante du tourisme et des investissements étrangers ainsi qu’un déficit budgétaire estimé à 27,5 milliards de dollars.Selon les termes de l’accord, le gouvernement a déjà commencé à réduire les subventions pour le gaz de cuisine et l’électricité et planifie d’en réduire plus, y compris pour la nourriture. « Nous avons besoin de faire cela graduellement pour s’assurer que cela peut réussir, » a dit Hisham Kandil au Financial Times de Londres en octobre. « Il n’y a pas de bon moment pour implanter un programme de réformes. »
Le 9 décembre, Mohamed Morsi a annoncé qu’il imposait de nouvelles taxes sur les boissons gazeuses, la bière, les cigarettes, les services de téléphone cellulaire, l’huile de cuisine, les fertilisants et les pesticides dans la perspective d’obtenir le prêt du FMI. Plus tard dans la soirée, il annonçait que ces mesures étaient suspendues « jusqu’à ce que le niveau d’acceptation publique soit clair. »
« Morsi n’a plus de légitimité, » a dit par téléphone Gamal Abu’l Oula Hassamin, directeur du Centre pour les syndicats de métiers et les services aux travailleurs qui aide les travailleurs à s’organiser à Mahalla. « Les travailleurs des ateliers, les autres travailleurs et les résidents du quartier discutent de ce qu’il faut faire. »
Georges Mehrabian à Athènes, en Grèce, a contribué à cet article.



 (front page)

Egyptian president moves
to restrict political rights
Amid mass protests, workers defend space to organize


AP Photo/Petr David Josek
Dec. 9 protest at presidential palace in Cairo against draft
constitution pushed by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that restricts
democratic rights, unions and freedom of worship.

BY SETH GALINSKY
Since Nov. 22 when Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi decreed that all
his decisions are “final and binding” until a new constitution is
passed, hundreds of thousands of opponents and supporters of his
government have joined competing demonstrations across the country.
Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, announced Dec. 9 that a
referendum on a new constitution—which codifies restrictions on
democratic rights, unions and freedom of worship—will take place Dec.
15, pushing aside calls to postpone the vote from a range of bourgeois
opposition parties and many trade unions. Morsi said he had authorized
the army to arrest civilians to maintain “public order” until the vote
is over.

Morsi also modified the decree that his decisions are law and cannot
be appealed in court, saying that this only applies to “constitutional
declarations.” A few days earlier he called for a dialogue with
opposition leaders.

Morsi was elected in June following the military’s removal of dictator
Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 after several weeks of protests by
hundreds of thousands, inspired by the movement that overthrew the Ben
Ali dictatorship in Tunisia. Protests continued against the military
regime that at first took Mubarak’s place.

Under the guise of consolidating the “revolution” and preventing a
return of direct military rule, the Muslim Brotherhood—the largest and
best organized capitalist party in the country—is moving to close down
space working people won in the course of that struggle.

In several cities opponents and supporters of the measures have
clashed, with dead and wounded reported on both sides.

Concerned about provoking another round of mass actions in the
country, President Barack Obama called the Egyptian president Dec. 6
and “welcomed Morsi’s call for a dialogue with the opposition,”
according to a White House press release. “It is essential for
Egyptian leaders across the political spectrum to put aside their
differences and come together to agree on a path that will move Egypt
forward,” he said. But opposition parties rejected the call, unless
the referendum was postponed.

Although the draft constitution uses the word “freedom” 42 times, it
limits free speech through prohibitions on insulting prophets or
individuals. It includes provisions widely viewed as tightening the
application of sharia law and limiting freedom of worship, allowing
state control of the finances of the Coptic Christian church and
eliminating protections for followers of the Baha’i faith. About 5.3
percent of Egypt’s 80 million people are Coptic Christians.

It also undermines workers’ right to organize by specifying that only
one union is allowed “per profession.” Since the removal of Mubarak,
hundreds of new unions have been formed, often in direct competition
with the state-backed federation.

The draft eliminates a clause from the old constitution that
prohibited discrimination “on the basis of sex, origin, religion and
creed.”

Continuing the uneasy alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the
military high command, the constitution allows military trials for
civilians “for crimes that affect the armed forces” and keeps secret
the military budget. High-ranking army officials are a key section of
Egypt’s capitalist class. The military owns large factories and farms,
controlling between 20 and 30 percent of the country’s economy.

Interests of workers
“The government decrees are clearly not in the interests of workers,”
Ibraham Hamdi, a worker at a state-owned textile mill in Mahalla El
Kubra told the Militant in a Dec. 8 phone interview. “That is why
thousands of us have participated in demonstrations demanding they be
repealed.”
While most workers in the mills are not supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood, “We try to discuss with those that are with Morsi, to win
them over,” he said.

“Our main union demands revolve around job security and public
investments to get the machines working in order to hire more
workers,” Hamdi added, noting that thousands of workers have lost
their jobs over the last several years.

“The constitution says that women are to be protected and that is
really worrying,” Alaa Murad, a recent college graduate who works at a
university in Cairo, told the Militant. “I am a practicing Muslim, but
the Brotherhood twists certain religious texts and interprets them in
their own way. They want to bring back laws that a husband can control
whether a woman works or not, apply to university or travel without
his permission. It’s bad enough already that we don’t have access to a
lot of occupations.”

Murad said some of her relatives, many engineers or professors,
support the Muslim Brotherhood. “Before Morsi was elected, we used to
talk about our disagreements, discussion was more acceptable,” she
said. “But now his supporters have become more vicious.”

The National Salvation Front formed to oppose Morsi’s moves is
dominated by capitalist politicians. It is headed by Mohamed el
Baradei, former head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency
and leader of the Constitution Party; Amr Moussa, former Arab League
head and at one time Mubarak’s foreign minister; Al-Sayed al Badawy,
head of the Wafd Party, which played the role of a loyal opposition
during the Mubarak regime; and Hamden Sabbahi, leader of the Nasserite
Popular Current.

The front also includes several social democratic and middle class
radical groups, including Al-Tagammu, the Socialist Popular Alliance
Party and the Social Democratic Party.

The military high command has tried to portray itself as above the
fray. “We support the call for national dialogue, to reach a consensus
that unites all segments of the nation,” Armed Forces spokesperson
Ahmed Mohamed Ali stated Dec. 8. “The Armed Forces have always ensured
the security and safety of the nation and its people.”

Since taking office, Morsi has kept in place many policies both of
Mubarak and the interim military regime that immediately followed his
ouster. And like his predecessors he has called on workers to stop
striking for higher wages and better working conditions.

Brotherhood backs IMF austerity
Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil has been negotiating with the
International Monetary Fund over the terms of a $4.8 billion loan
Morsi’s government has requested to weather the economic crisis,
including a sharp drop in tourism and foreign investment and a budget
deficit estimated at $27.5 billion.
As part of the deal, the government has already begun cuts in
subsidies for cooking gas and electricity and plans to cut more,
including for food. “We need to do it gradually and to make sure it
can succeed,” Kandil told the London Financial Times in October.
“There is no good time to implement a reform programme.”

On Dec. 9 Morsi announced he was imposing new sales taxes on soft
drinks, beer, cigarettes, cellphone services, cooking oil, fertilizers
and pesticides as part of getting the IMF loan. Later that night he
announced the measures were on hold “until the degree of public
acceptance is made clear.”

“Morsi no longer has legitimacy,” Gamal Abu’l Oula Hassamin, director
of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services, which helps
organize workers in Mahalla, said by phone. “Mill workers, other
workers and neighborhood residents are discussing what to do.”

Georges Mehrabian in Athens, Greece, contributed to this article.
@The Militant Dec. 14, 2012

___________________

Qahwa Fishawi, le Caire

Carlo Nallino, qui a donna des cours de litterature arabe du jahiliyya jusqu'aux omayyades, serait surpris de voir les manifestations des integrists qui soutiennent les freres musulmans aujourd'hiu a l'universite du Caire.

Cafe de Flore, Paris

Can one insert a movie?

Here's a movie of houses in Toronto, Canada.

Feedburner

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

Sitting by the paintings of Vaserelly, thinking of Gaza, the sea, and how people don't realize how cooped up we are in Gaza.  Not as bad as the prisons, though.

McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Detroit

June 1, 2012: Detroit News coming into Work.  -- Assad's "Shabiha" killed some "factory workers" in a bus in western Syria (Banias?), yet the politicians persist in worrying about Syria falling into "sectarian warfare."  It is THEY who fomented the sectarianism in the Middle East.  What Assad, and the other bourgeois rulers in the Middle East are worried about is the organization of the workers and farmers into an opposition, nothing more complicated explains Assad's tactics.

Cafe de Flore, Paris

Les cafes parisiens sont pour la gallantrie. Pas beaucoup de gallantrie avec les lois "stand your ground" aux etats unis.

From my apartment

The discrete trivia of the Bourgeoisie...pink slips, warning letters, firings

McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Romulus-Detroit, Michigan

On Thursday and Friday morning, March 15th and 16th, in Damascus, there were large demonstrations against the Assad regime in "Ramala" quarter. I think, along with Cindy, in New York, that the resistance to Assad will ultimately succeed. The rank and file soldiers will refuse to fire on their own people. The lesson is that the capitalists place a lot of traps on the workers movement these days, like the lockouts in the US. But working people make some resistance, nonetheless.

Also...here at the University of Michigan, Google Apps for Education is in full swing. Someone should recount the experience of the University of Michigan in computers, starting with the old Basic programs taught by Physics Professors to Urban Planning clesses, to the statistics homework done on main-frames with cards, to hypercard sites, to the mac plusses, and the mac SE 7.5s. One could include the Turtle Graphics programs which were taught in schools and formed the basis of the knowledge that the designers of the early computers like steve Jobs and Bill Gates worked on.

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

I'll never forgive him for speaking to an Israeli sponsored series on Jerusalem. Even today his writing appears a little bit off-color he analyzes things but never comes to a conclusion that seems logical. Like Grabar, Nassar Rabbat has written things that seem wrong. For example, Rabbat in his book on Mamluke architecture criticizes Cresswell. I can't believe he criticizes Cresswell. Cresswell was one of the pioneer archaeologists who described the great monuments of Mamluke architecture. Let's look at some other Orientalists now. I'm reading from AJ Arberry's "Oriental essays portraits of seven scholars". The first portrait is of Simon Ockley. He was born in 1678. Ockley wrote the history of the Saracens at Cambridge. He translated many manuscripts from Oxford. Arberry calls him the pioneer. Here's another man whom Arberry calls the founder. This is a man named Jones who worked in the 18th century and knew Boswell and even Benjamin Franklin. He wrote a grammar of Persian which was used by Fitzgerald. This William Jones was amazing. He wrote poetry in Persian French Arabic and Sanskrit. I think I'll paste this into my blog.

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza La Méditerranée dangereuse

A couple of days ago Costa Cruises sank one of their ships off the coast of Italy. I have been re-reading Henri Pirenne's Medieval Cities, Princeton University Press 1969. I'm struck by the influence--or, what the Christian historians call the razzias from Arab Spain--in the late 700's. Lérins played a part, as did Massif des Maures. It would be impotrant to check the Arab historians to see if this was not rather merchant influence, like the later interest in mathematics and science by the Po Valley pre-Rennaissance fiefdoms, who invited Arab scholars from Spain.

Joffrey's Café, Dhahran, i.e. from my apartment

J'ai regardé une programme su le nouveau Sudan du Sud indeépendante du vrai Sudan. Tout le monde a oublié les origines Jimmy Carteresque de la guerre pour le petrol du Sudan, commence par le desir de missioner les chrétiens de ce region.

Cafe de Flore, Paris

Gallantry with a red bicycle. Picture of my new bicycle, before I added the Go Sport saddle bags.

McNamara Airport Coffee Shop, Detroit, Michigan

All discussion of the news shall be from McNamara Airport Ground Operations Break Room.

The Militant has a nice way of showing the importance of the long view of History to the young people at the "Occupy Wall Street protests." They quote:
"As long as workers' confidence and practice of solidarity continues to grow as a result of these struggles, we get stronger. 'Now and again the workers are victorious, but only for a time,' says the Communist Manifesto. 'The real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers.'"
ومن وقت إلى آخر ينتصر العمال انتصارهم هو الى حين. والنتيجة الحقة لنضالهم ليست في النجاح المباشر بل في إتحاد العمل المنعاظن باستمرار.

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara ...Learning Shati Tea and Falafel Shop

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from
McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

Had an interesting conversation with an African American outside Dar Al-Ma'arif Bookstore in Cairo yesterday. Dr. Paul explained the significance of the metaphysics of Avicenna. Ibn Sina explains that the mind is both the individual mind (noos, in Greek) and the activator. Very interesting. Dr. Paul (Hardy) did his thesis on Avicenna at Oxford.

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza City, Gaza

...a democratic secular Palesine, with the Palestinians back on their land, will naturally be also be a refuge for Jews persecuted by Anti-semitism in the crisis-torn capitalist world (The Militant Aug. 8, 2011).

Just thinking of how the Universities no longer have "anthologies" of foreign literature the way they used to, and how the great classics in History of the 60's and 70's have been replaced by a hodg podge of personal reminiscences of interviewby reporters.

café de Flore, Paris Maqamat Al-Hamadhaniمقامات الهمذاني

I just posted this cd I bought from the BNF Richlieu of the manuscript of Hamadhani's Maqamat, which were literary discussions--like the Tatler, but in 9th century Baghdad. They are stories, but also a form of literary criticism took place at these discussions. The early orientalists like de Sacy had access to 15th century manuscripts in the Bibliothèque royale and much was done: Below is a story of talking animals that is from Hamadani's Maqamat which is in de Sacy's Chrestomathie, "anthology." I have pasted in the "Dog"(le chien) story and the reference to the manuscript here. (When I went to Paris, the librarian in the Arabic section used the catalogue to find the manuscript number and then, with that info, I went to BNF Richlieu--right on my favorite bus route from Montmartre, the 75, I think, and ordered the CD. If you want to study the whole manuscript, you can wait for the pdf to download from my university of Michigan server. MSS arabe, BNF # 3923

Below is a copy and paste of story 113 in the Google Books Scan of this old Bibliography of Stories: BIBLIOGRAPHIE DES OUVRAGES ARABES OU RELATIFS AUX ARABES PUBLIES DANS l'Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, Victor Chavin, Professeur a l'Universite de LIEGE

in Google books at Link

As you can see, you have to know a little bit about French, since the google scan doesn't OCR French very well. For Manuscrits, they have some gobledegook. My manuscript seems to have been read quite early, at least before 1885 already by these great old orientalists. In the footnotes after the story of the dog, my manuscript is listed as Paris, 639, n" 3923

Hamadani needs further study as an exeplary form of literary criticism, as my colleague at Jeddah Teachers college told me, thus enspiring me to go to the BNF Richleu and ordering it.

113. — Le chien.



8. — Behmauer, 113.— Gibb, 119.



Le saint BAyazîd est mordu par un chien malade qu'il avait recueilli et soigné.
Comme il se plaint, l'animal, à qui Dieu donne un instant la parole, lui dit
que « l'homme agit comme un homme et le chien comme un chien. »



Animaux qui parlent. Nombres, XXII et suiv. Winer, Bibl. Realwôr-
terbuch, 3® édit., 1, 184. — BiKhart, Hicrozoïcon, 1692, 1, 191-198.— Damîri,
1, 228 et 327. — IMâm, 125. — Defrémery, Batoutah, 4, 415 (Journ. asial.,
1843, 1, 216.).— Man. Paris, 346, n^ i93i> 16 et 626, n** 3668, 4.— Man.
Berlin, 20, 23.


113.* — DK SACY, Chre>tomathie arabe. 1H27, tome 3.



C'J Voir aussi :

— Ikockelmanii. 1, 03-^5; <^*dit. Aniclang, 93.

— (îrassc, Lchrbuch, 2, 1, 1, 460.

— H. Halla, 6^ 54. n*' liyoH.

Te Slane, Ibn Khall., 1, 1 12-114.

— D'Ucrlx^loi. y^'^-y/j.

"DoSacy, n" I2(/*', V; n" i?i*^, IIl-IV.
- !)(' Sacv, Hinjy. Miihaud. v" Hamadâni.

— Hainmer, Litcraturgcsch., 5, 994-99^.

— Scliniirrc*r m* donne pas l'édition de Scheid, dont il y a un exemplaire à

la HiMiothètuie de Strasbourg : -iÎAèNû-i*i^Vci ^•./c^.iU. ('onsessus Ilamada-

nensis vul^o dicti Ik*di alzamaan (^.^L« J^ *.5.^? ' *î cckI. Ms. bibliothcae Iratns
siii ejusdenKjue typis arabicis edidit Jaeobus Sclieidius. S. 1. n. d. In-4. 16.
(Catalogue de Strastxmrg, 27.)
("es! la maqame Ae Dhidr.

M\Ni'S(Kn>. (Manuscrits)

— Paris, 639, n" 3923.

— Herlin, 19, 529, n" 3535, 441, S4-8S (la neuvième maqânn- ) et 514. 5.

— Leide, 1, 309, noie et 334-335*

— Hibl. Lindes., 14-15.

— Hrockelmann, 1, ^,^.



- o8 —

Donne les maqâmt;s suivantes : 3, 7, S, 12, 15 et 20. (Texte. 7«S-g4 ;
traduction, 243-258; notes, 25<)-272; additions, 537; errata, 5t)«S.)(^)

('. R. Chêzy, J. des savants, 1829, 409-470.

MacNamara Airport Terminal Ground Operations Coffee Machine, Detroit, Michigan ..Hama, Syria

People throughout Syria held night-time protests in solidarity with the people of Hama yesterday, July 6, since the Syrian army has dealt very severely with Hama after their July 1 demonstration of 1 and ½ million 150,000. Although the attack by the Syrian army cannot be condoned, it was rather hypocritical of the US Secretary of State, Clinton, to express concern, and continue to link these tactics of the Assad regime with something Syria had learned from Iran. She can get away with such hypocrisy since very little is known about how the US condoned and even fostered even worse repression in their support of the Shah against opposition to him throughout the many urban centers of Iran which were subject to hellicopter strafing and the infamous steel bed springs torture racks developed by the American Embassy for use of the dreaded SAVAK.

Macnamara Airport Ground Ops Coffee Machine...the financial crisis and the consequent assault on workers and farmers

Je sais que l'homme ou la femme moyen me dira que j'ai une haine virulante envers les états unis, mais ce n'est pas contre l'Amérique, mais plutot contre la classe dirigeante et leur pragmatisme. Eux, ils n'ont pas besoin de gagner. Pour eux ce n'est que "exister" qu'ils faut faire. Pour nous autres, il faut arracher le pourvoir de leur mains. C'est la crise des banques impérialistes qui provoque la reaction brutale de Assad en Syrie, et des colonels de l'Egypte et de la Lybie. C'est le capitalisme -- ce système qui n'a qu'a détruire comme il peut pour survivre. C'est pour cela qu'il y a ces tueries en Syrie.

Il n'y a qu'une prise de pouvoir aux états unis par la classe ouvrière, prise de pouvoir par une direction révolutionnaire de masse qui n'hésitera pas à prendre le pourvoir des captialistes, qui pourra arreter ce systeme inexorable du capitalisme mondial, qui est l'imperialisme. Et pauvre moi, qui avait meme "un peu peur" quand mes étudiants sont allés "en masse" me dit-on, au doyen pour se plaindre du fait que je n'avais pas enseigné 002, avec les nouvelles bouquins, avant. Et voila que je parle des "masses" maintenant apres avoir récouperé un peu après la semestre scholaire, et avoir re-lu "Capitalism's Long Hot Winter Has Begun."pdf de 2004.

from my appartment ...on Syria

Watched a BBC report by Sue Lloyd-Roberts on the big demonstrations in Syria. It gives an unusual glimpse to the west of what I see all the time on Al-Arabiyya. She shows how the activists get out the pictures.

Women are fleeing to Lebanon so as not to get raped by the regime's soldiers. And soldiers have to flee to Lebanon in order to avoid being killed for not enforcing orders to shoot. Friday of "Get out" jum'a al-rahal today some of the largest demonstrations ever.

Café de Flore, Paris: La France toujours! et Vive Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Freidan, et Hoda Sha'rawi

Link to me thinking about a book I should write. This takes a little time to download. Lien à moi pensant à un livre que je devrais écrire. اتصال(ياخذ قليم من الوقت) وانا افكر عن كتاب ضروري ان اكتبه


With all the news about Syria, I forgot, but was reminded by my friend Cindy, about the importance of what women in Saudi Arabia do.

Avec toutes les nouvelles de Syrie, j'avais oublié, mais mon amie, Cindy, m'a fait souvenir de l'importance de ce que font les femmes en Arabie Saoudite.

مع كل الاخبار عن سوريا, نسيت, و لاكن صديقتي سندي ذكّرتني عن اهمية ما تفعلون النساء في العربية السعودية


Saudi women defy ban on driving cars

Cindy* wrote:
Dozens of Saudi women drove cars in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and other Saudi cities June 17 to protest the ban on women driving.
It was the first major protest against the Saudi monarchy’s reactionary ban since November 1990, when 47 women drove 14 cars in a convoy on a Riyadh highway. That action came after U.S. women soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia prior to the start of the U.S. war against Iraq and freely drove military vehicles.

The 47 women were arrested, lost their passports for a year, and were fired from their jobs. A religious order prohibiting women from driving was handed down and quickly embraced by the Interior Ministry.

The ruling Saudi family, a close ally of Washington, has historically invoked Islamic law to justify tight restrictions on political space, not only for women but all working people in the kingdom.

Women are allowed to drive in some rural villages, where they have traditionally taken produce to market, hauled water, and transported people.

In addition to the prohibition on driving, Saudi women cannot vote. They require a male guardian’s permission to take a job or travel.

*July 4th issue of a US paper written in the interests of working people

ٍمن شقتي From my appartment

Today's Friday protests in Syria are called : Legitimate Bereavement فقدان شرعية

McNamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Detroit...Al-Jazeera on Syria

دير الزور حلب حمص حماة درعاء دمشق

Deir Al-Zor, Halab(Aleppo), Homs, Hama', Der'aa, Dimashq(Damascus)

Hier soir il y avait des manifestations pour la chute du regime Syrian dans les villes. Les attaques de l'armée syrienne continue dans le nord d'Alep. 10,000 refugiées en Turaquie maintenant dans des camps cloisonnés.

Un lénine de la Syrie expliqurait l'importance de ces paysans du nord de Syrie qui font greve--le seul moyen qu'ils ont,--en quittant leurs récoltes. Des grèves des petits marchands commencent dans d'autres villes syriennes en meme temps.

Il y a pas mal de Kurds syriens dans ces pays au nord d'Alep. Le régime syrien attaque cette région pour jouer avec le stigma raciste contre les Kurds. Mais il ne réussi pas. Tous les syriens sont avec les Kurds. Il y a des manifestations a Qamishli, grand région kurde juste a coté de la Turquie.

écrit pendant le دوام ليمي "night shift" à l'aeroport de Detroit le 23 juin, 2011, correspond à 9h du matin Al-Jazeera, Qatar le 24 juin.

Café de Flore, Paris and Abd Al-Halim Hafez's birthday

As we said before, all accounts of gallantry shall be from Café de Flore, Paris. What is nice about Google in Arabic is that yesterday, June 21, we were reminded that it was Egyptian male singer, Abd Al-Halim Hafez's birthday. No more gallant man than he, yesterday, on this singer-of-love-song's birthday, with the possible exception of Nelson Mandela, who received the elegant Michele Obama in his home town of Soweito yesterday,too. Gallant as he is, I'm sure Nelson Mandela(Freedom Now) won't bother Michele's pretty little head with a tribute to the role of the Cubans at the battle of Quito Canavale-to the role of Cuba in the ending of Apartheid. Michele Obama should read his speech, given in Cuba first thing after his release from prison in 1990 in Pathfinder Press' HOW FAR WE SLAVES HAVE COME. July26-1991-Cuba-and-Africa.mp3 is link to my reading of the speech, and a link to Mandela's speech at the UN, at about the same time, when the Apartheid Government was stalling on pushing De Klerk to step down and set up a democratic, non racial, South Africa. I heard Mandela speak in Tiger Stadium, in Detroit that year.

3011

Macnamara Airport Ground Ops Coffee Machine...Syria

Last night students at Damascus University protested the regime: nothing about it on BBC this morning.

Some of the greats in English Literature at the University of Damascus; my father, Edward Said, and all the Syrians who came to help teach in Saudi Arabia. (above, is a picture of a café in Paris named after my daughter, who met my father in his retirement in East Lansing, Michigan.)
More about English Literature in the Middle East in future blog entries from the poetry café in Gaza, the tea-and-falafel-shop outside Shati' Beach Camp to which yesterday 36 US peace activists set sail to break the Israeli blocade.

From my appartment, Joffrey's Coffee Shop, near Main Gate, KFUPM, Dhahran

All other news shall be from my appartment. This morning, I downloaded and installed Audacity and Lame encoder for making MP3's on my little ASUS Netbook. I am sitting here in the café, missing my students, who are finally free and on holiday. This little café, near Al-Nakhil (The Palm Tree) Restaurant, where I often have Biryani for lunch, is on the formerly deserted site where the father--(Tom Barger)--of my Shemlan colleague, Tim Barger, first discoverd oil in Saudi Arabia.

Shati' Tea-and-Falafel Shop, Gaza - On Learning..Philosophy of TechTalk*

*TechTalk, by Oxford University Press, is the series we use to teach Elementary and Pre Intermediate English to future Engineering students here at KFUPM.
According to Barthélémy, a professor at Lycée Henri IV, where Philippe Daumas* studied, we have to take the Encyclopedists of the Enlightemment, the age of "Les Lumieres" as an approach to a humanistic view of Machines and tools.(picture of Lycée Henri IV, above)

This is summarized in this nice translation of part 1 of Gilbert Simondon's 1958 Ecole Normale Supérieure - Sorbonne Thesis, L'individu et sa génèse physico-biologique, translated here, downloadable in pdf(copy here).

I'll have to put this kind of relation to Diderot's Encyclopedia with the Aleppo soap manufactures and "sina,a" of the Arabs.

Technical Mentality, translated by Arne De Boever, gives a nice summary of what Simondon meant by a culture of Technology(copy here). He has references to the potter making the pot; so this relates very closely to the trades of Syria. This unpublished text of Simondon, given to Jean-Hugues Barthélémy by his son was first published in Gilbert Simondon. Revue philosophique 3 (2006) Paris, P.U.F. 343-357
*Philippe Daumas, great supporter of the Palestinian Cause at University of Montpellier, where Taha Hussein studied, too.

Café de Flore, Paris - Syrian government's gallantry?

Today, Saturday 18 June after the Friday mass demonstrations against the Regime of Bashar al-Assad, BBC TV showed film footage one of their reporters got by going, somehow into Syria and interviewing people in the fields, camped out to avoid the Syrian army going through their village and pillaging and bulldozing houses.

Huge demonstartions in Hama and Aleppo Friday the 17th. Very inspiring, but not covered very much in the Western media. Solidarity candle-lit "Free Syria" on the lawn in Canberra, Australia.

Once again, I'm having difficulty posting this from a computer with Windows 7.

Café de Flore, Paris Syrian gov's gallantry toward Hama' farming women?

Today, Saturday 18 June after the Friday mass demonstrations against the Regime of Bashar al-Assad, BBC TV showed film footage one of their reporters got by going right through the Turkish border into a part of Syria. He interviewed an Syrian woman wearing her long blue robe and a white scarf over her head. She reminded us of those wonderful, proud, Palestinian women with their embroidered black robes selling fruit and vegetables in the main market of Gaza City. (above, Café de Flore, Paris)

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop - Cultural musings on Syria's Ma'arrat al-Numan struggle

Pendant que l'armée syrienne continue d'assiéger la petite ville--maintenant grande--de Ma'arrat al-Numan, je pense à Abu 'Ila Al-Ma'arri le grand pessimiste du moyen age. N'est-ce vrai que l'attaque contre cette ville est la lutte contre le Voltairisme -c.a.d. contre la liberte dans la croyance personelle-- que Abu Ala a introduit dans la pensée au moyen age?

How wrong the Obamas and Defense Secretary Gates have it, in supporting the conservative religious forces in the world...just like Assad going against the memory of Abu 'Ila Al-Naman who contributed so much to making religion a personal, freedom of thought thing. I wonder if that is why Assad is beseiging so fiercely this little town--now quite big--were Abu 'Ia Al-Ma'arri was from.

McNamara Ground Operations Coffee Machine Political reflection

There is a certain similarity between The Imperialists' governments and the Syrian and Lybian police states these days. Both are blaming Al-qa'ida for their domestic repression. Just as in the US, one cannot say such things--except here anonymously--same in Syria. Of course much worse in Syria, where now eight thousand people have had to flee the northern cities of Jiser al-Shughur and another city in Idlib province into Turkey. I could see from the faces in the crowd of the pro-Assad rally Wednesday the 15th? that Assad is able to rally the better-off middle bourgeoisie. It seems to be the farmers who are moving politically in this rich farming country.

Care de Flore, Paris

Terrible problems with Blogger.com. I can't change what I publish. Anyway, here's a link to what I am thinking about as the events in Syria transpire.
Louis Massignon's preface to Al-Qasimi's "Industries of Damascus"

Shati' tea and falafel shop "Jim Baker's Blue Jay Yarn," by Mark Twain

To experience Yosemite the way my mother, an old Californian, whose mother started the Save the Redwoods League, you should stay at "Housekeeping Camp" of the Yosemite National Park service. But you have to book long in advance for the summer months. I don't know if they let the burning logs fall off El Capitan at night, and if there is piano in the outdoors in the valley. I remember the funny song, "I'm an acompanist..the guy who never gets into the act." I heard that at Yosemite. It is something to see, that great cliff, cheared off like a half-loaf in the valley there in front of the Ahwahnee Hotel.

Here's a link, in old Macintosh Geneva font, to Mark Twain's "Bluejay Yarn" Chapter Three in A Tramp Abroad, where he ends with:

"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for
an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any
use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know
better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United
States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other
birds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come
from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on
his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he
was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too."

From my apartment, faxing Obama...with a grapefruit from S. Lebanon coast

P.O. Box 1745
KFUPM
Dhahran 31261
Saudi Arabia

The President of the US
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

June 4, 2011

Dear Mr. President,
Greetings again. I am the writer of a May 19 fax and email expressing my distress that Dominique Strauss Kahn was in prison, ending with the following plea to you that something be done so that he not have to spend more nights in his cell on Reiker's Island.
"Would George Washington have put General Lafayette in New York prison if he had been a little bit "French" and over gallant with the ladies at a cotillion at Mount Vernon? Come on!
...You ran on "cosmopolitanism." Please intervene: maybe even make a visit to DSK in prison so that they would treat him a little better, at least."
They did treat him a little better, whether because of my fax or my prayers, or something the White House did; he is now awaiting trial in a comfortable place and the media has moved on to other things.
Nevertheless, the discovery that I could send messages to you, has encouraged me to pass on to you some "remarks to the younger generation," as I am sort of a dinosaur, having actually been alive (in the US) during the 1967 events, and in their aftermath (in Lebanon and Egypt) which you mentioned in your "67 borders with swaps" speech to the State Department employees.
In response to your "swaps," Natanyahu used the word "indefensible" for the 1967 borders. I woiuld agree that Abba Eban's lies, during the televised UN debates during the 1967 war, to rationalise Israel's grasping of the West Bank from Jordan were, indeed indefensible arguments. It is good that Natanyahu reminded us, obliquely, as does UN resolution 242, that Israel's land grab in 1967 was indefensible. Of course Natanyahu didn't mean that he agreed that Abba Eban made a false, "indefensible" argument at the UN. He meant "undefendable-not able to be defended"--to him, unless the seacoast and farmland of Israel has a land buffer, with settlements, in the occupied West Bank, it is is not able to defend itself from all the weaponry which President Assad of Syria, the Military Care-taker government of Egypt, and King Abdullah of Jordan are known to have.
As for your use of "swaps," --though it is nice and American, and seems to come right out of Mark Twain's, "Tom Sawyer," ---there is nothing left for the Palestinians to swap! What they had--the five hundred agricultural villages, the whole system of rain catching systems, of organic irrigation--were bulldozed and most of the inhabitants expelled in 1948. When I had the word "swaps" in my Engineering English course for Saudi students here, I couldn't find a word to give the Arabic translation of swaps, but after your speech, Al-Arabiyya TV translated it as "tabadul," exchange.
Back to my sympathy for France--let's remember that French, not English, is still a much more precise language for diplomacy, especially in light of Natanyahu's sloppy use of "indefensible," when he meant to gloss over his delusion that Israel, with an atomic bomb and everything, is "undefendable" against Assad, Tantawi, and Abdullah. The Arab countries agreed to the French wording of UN resolution 242, which says Israel must withdraw from "des territoires occupées" --"des," being understood as a contraction of "de" and "les," from THE occupied territories. (The Arabic of 242, is even more precise, since it says withdrawal from "the;" Al- the famous Al-, which has given us so many technical words (we are not that far from the transmission of the pre-Socratics, through Aristotle, to Europe, by Avicenna) like algorithm, alloy, algebra, etc,. The English, on the other hand says, "from occupied territories," which is not clear whether it means calling on Israel to withdraw from all the occupied territories or just from the occasional, or "some," occupied territories. Your "swaps," is just the civil war-Mark-Twain-19th century version of the English version of Resolution 242, and I commend you for animating, in this way, the rather stale English version of 242. (We English teachers always dream of teaching English as a Second Language with Literature, especially Literature of the caliber of Mark Twain or Hemmingway; but we're stuck with TOEFL -Test of English as A Foreign Language- like the history of Coca Cola, Betsy Ross, Paul Revere, the Grand Canyon, and the Gemini Space probe)
However, Natanyahu's misuse of "indefensible" opens the door to taking him up on his English and saying to him, "yes, what Israel did to the Palestinians in 1948, and then again in 1967 is indefensible." Also, what Israel is doing to the land is indefensible. I wish, with the new emphasis on the fight to live ecologically on an ecological planet, somebody would point out that the Arizona-style irrigation systems that Israel put in place, bulldozing over the centuries-old systems that the Palestinians had developed over millennia, are desiccating the land. The aquifers from the northern lakes are being used to pump excessive water into areas where the Palestinians formerly caught the winter rain water and used an elaborate system, developed in the Arabian peninsula during the Roman period--actually transmitted to Roman engineers by the Arabs, probably--and perfected in the Omayyad period, in Syria (c.f. Nelson Glueck's study of the Nabatean irrigation systems of the Negev desert, "Rivers in the Desert." and physical remains of Arab dams and water collecting works in Spanish Andalusia).
I think most Jewish citizens of Israel would agree that the continued refusal of their government to abide by UN resolution 242, which also states that the Palestinians must have the right to return to 1948 Israel, is also indefensible, untenable, and unnecessary. The Palestinians would be glad to live together with the Israelis in their old land, and the modern Israelis who colonized the land no longer need to be on a constant war footing: there is no more talk of fighting Assad, Tantawi, or Abdulla from the hawks, or the doves, in Israel "because of a ship sailing through the straits of Tiran"-this was the excuse Abba Eban and Moshe Dyan gave in 1967 for dropping red-hot walls of Michigan-made, Dow Chemical Napalm on the Egyptian Sinai to take Gaza and the Sinai. The Israelis are pooped out, and no longer enthusiastic about being "fortress Israel" on a constant war footing. They need a democratic secular Palestine. What would happen if they let the Palestinians back in and they worked together to save the land? It would be great! And it would be a shining example of the old civilized days when Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together fruitfully throughout the Middle East and transmitted their techniques--soap, Alchemy(Chemistry), Hippocratic-Avicennian Medicine, farming(the farmers Almanac), new vegetables from India and Iran(egg-plant-aubergine, Jaffa oranges). It would have repercussions all over, as the ancient systems of working with the existing water came back to the fore,
I know it is hard to change old ways of thinking in the State Department. They won't forgive the Students in Tehran for taking over the US Embassy after the downfall of the Shah--all this talk against the Iranian nukes is the old State Department line of anger that Carter's restoration of the Shah didn't work. Israel's paranoia about Hizbolla in Lebanon is just because the Israeli army got a little licking in I-forget-when and had to leave Tyre, where residents (in exile in Dearborn, MI) say they saw Israeli archaeologists doing the craziest of things--looking for gold under Hiram's tomb! And all this talk of Hamas being a "terrorist" organization is just because most of the Gazan's are refugees kicked out from Majdal (where Mary Magdalene was from and from which she was kicked out by the Romans and went to Saintes Maries de la Mer in France), and from all the coastal towns bulldozed south of Jaffa. (The coastal road is nothing today but cement highways, tenement houses, parched earth..and the 9th century Arab new town of Ramla, which is now known as one of the most notorious oubliettes for Palestinian prisoners, but used to be all orange and olive groves like southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip itself.) Hamas and Fateh are just tweedle dumb and tweedle dee, like the Democratic and Republican Parties in the US. Yasser Arafat's Fateh was deemed to be a terrorist organization by Sharon, who bulldozed Jenin and Ramalla and cornered Arafat in his building, which "proved," by military war that he was a terrorist. The same for Hamas. If you don't recognize the two-state solution, and prefer to hold out for your right, explicit even in UN Resolugion 242, to live alongside the Israelis in your old farming land, you are a "terrorist."
Finally, one more speaking gambit that Natanyahu opened while you were in Ireland, and he was speaking before the House of Representatives was that he expressed concern that Israel is seen as "the bad guy," and that this is not so: he went on to say how the Palestinians within 1948 Israel proper have a kind of democracy that forms a beacon to the youth fighting for employment and rights in the farming villages and cities of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. But it is not to the youth outside the "sixty-seven borders with swaps" that the Palestinian citizens inside Israel are important. They are important because they are within the belly of the beast, as it were, and work alongside, or at least have the potential to work alongside the Israelis and explain that they can live together and explain that there is a need for a return of the refugees and, thus, for a democratic Israel. It is a tough thing to explain, given the kind of walls between Israelis and Palestinians living in Israel. The Palestinians need a little help from the international community explaining how, indeed, Israel is a colonial settler state--it is sort of the "bad guy"-- yet, the colonists are there now, and yet, and yet, we still need to live with these colonists. It is a matter of water or no water, of life or death, of the land, or of no-land, of the most beautifully designed medieval city in the world(Arab Jerusalem), or a desert without history, of restoring the 500 bulldozed hilltop villages with their natural rain-catching streets and cisterns, or only cement tenements and prisons. It is a matter of patria o muerte, as Che would say. I have attached the famous article Max Rodinson published--a pdf of the French article he got printed in Sartre's "Les Temps Modernes"--to help start helping explain the hiatus that Netanyahu gave us a peek into, in his speech to the House of Representatives.
In concluding, as we watch the Druze of the Hauran(Der'aa, and environs) take up the cudgels to fight for independence in Syria--just as the Hauran started the revolt against the French after Sykes Picot at the end of WW 1--it is a pleasure to recount to you, Mr. President--Ah, can I call you, my slim, elegant hero, like I like to think that I was, too, at your age?--these reflections from the Jurassic period so pertinent to today.
Sincerely,

3011

P.S. If I don't get an automated response within a few days saying no, I will take it that the white house wouldn't mind if I published this, without my signature, on my anonymous blog, which nobody reads anyway, at www.mediterraneancoffeeshops.blogspot.com

Shati' tea and falafel shop "67 borders with swaps" Obama, Tom Sawyer, and Hemmingway

Swaps, what do the Palestinians have left to swap?

But the mere fact that Obama went back that far in history, shows the effect of the Egyptian revolution, which has opened the Gaza crossing, and persuaded Hamas and Fateh to form a government of unity. It has got Obama to get out of his rocking chair in the White House and go off to Europe to talk and give speeches about the Arab Spring...all this to cover for the upcoming vote in the General Assembly for an independent state in what's left of what Israel took in 1967--the west bank of the Jordan river. Even though he's already saying that the US delegation in the Security council will veto the General Assembly decision creating a west bank Palestinian state, Obama is giving speech after speech in Europe about how much he supports the Arab spring. Even Natanyahu came to preach his repertoire of historical lies to the US House of Representatives, leaving his secure rocking chair in Israel for a moment.

But I call this blog from Shate'i tea and falafel shop, Gaza, my cultural blog. This is because of Obama's curious use of the word, "swaps". It sounds like something right out of Tom Sawyer. He likes to be "real American" these days; so I guess the Tom Sawyer allusion makes him seem really American, as opposed to "Israeli" which it is.

Nice festival in Cuba, though for the Hemingway fishing competition. I bought the old man and the sea, Al-Shaikh wa Al-Bahr, in Arabic tonight at Jariir.

Café de Flore

Flore, Fishawi, Shati, McNamara
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of
Café Flore, Paris; poetry, under that of Fishawi, Jeddah or Cairo; learning under the title of the Shati Tea-and-Falafel-shop, Gaza; foreign and domestic news, you will have from McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.

This is certainly an account of gallantry gone wrong: NY police used its superspy contacts with Homeland Security and ICE to take to court the 21st century head of the IMF, Dominique Straus Khan (DSK), the heritage of my mother's work at the Bretton Woods Conference helping Mendes France represent the French resistance, then in 1944 post-war collaboration with the US's European strike smashing(especially in Italy) and the setting of the US dollar as the standard in war-torn Europe. What would George Washington have said to see a French leader framed up by New York hotel MBA's, lawyers and managers, denied his right to travel, and put in a New York prison cell to await his chance to prove his innocence. As the competition between Europe and the US tightens during the banking and lending crisis today, we can expect to see more of such jousting at France by the US, even though the first American revolution owed so much to General Lafayette and the French.

What a long sentence that was! And the US president, fresh from his speech touting the "justice" of America's assassination of an old man in pajamas in far away Pakistan, and saying nary a thank-you to Britain, which split off Pakistan from their colony of India and made all the sectarian divisions in Central Asia--sectarian divisions, which the US now benefits from in its policy of holding Central Asia in underdevelopment and opium trade--nary a thank you to Britain for all her soldiers who died in Afghanistan; and now this same ungrateful president doesn't even bother to visit Dominique Straus Khan in Prison. He chit chats in the oval office with the King of Jordan, who has a much more beautiful wife than DSK, and doesn't lift a finger to freeze Bashar Al-Asad's assets (whose wife is also quite beautiful), although other leaders of the Syrian army's attacks on Syrian youth protester have had their Swiss assets sequestered.

There's gallantry for you.

Prisons are terrible things, especially US ones, which have the highest percentage of citizens behind bars of any country in the world. Dominique Strauss Khan should not be humiliated in this way. He is an elegant, convivial man, well known as a good conversationalist with women. He could not have molested any woman working at the Sofitel. The Americans must really hate the French, or perhaps it is just the New York police relishing the recent vist by President Obama to New York, and feeling they can do anything now that this presidential assassin of the man in pajamas in Pakistan(Ben Ladin) has graced New York with his presence. Will he have the courtesy to intervene in Dominique Strauss Khan's frame-up? Doubtful that he will. Could it be that the New York police are so stupid that they thought Khan was Pakistani?

Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine the Palestinians begin to move!

Oui, aujourd'hui les palestiniens ont commencé leur printemps arabe, pendant que l'armée syrienne était préoccupée à tuer les gens de Homs fuyant les chars syriens par le village de Tel Kalakh vers la frontière libanaise.

Tel Kalakh, n'est-il pas un site archéologique? Ugarit?

Al-Shati' Tea and Falafel shop, Gaza Jaffa orange season

I bought some beautiful Jaffa oranges at the university coop store the day before yesterday, and today saw that they had sold out all the boxes of Shammouti oranges. This is the season of the Jaffa oranges, May. The photo was taken the 26 of March, 2010; so I guess one could say the season is late March to late May.

Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, extrait du Monde pendant qu' Obama vistie Ground Zero

Fidel Castro juge "odieux" l'assassinat de Ben Laden
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 05.05.11 | 18h12 • Mis à jour le 05.05.11 | 18h13

Dans l'une de ses "réflexions" régulièrement publiées par la presse officielle cubaine, l'ex-président Fidel Castro a estimé jeudi 5 mai que "l'odieux assassinat" d'Oussama Ben Laden allait "multiplier les sentiments de haine et de vengeance" contre le peuple des Etats-Unis au lieu de le protéger.

"Quels que soient les actes attribués à Ben Laden, l'assassinat d'un être humain désarmé et entouré de sa famille constitue un acte odieux", estime le père de la révolution cubaine, déplorant qu'"apparemment c'est ce qu'a fait le gouvernement de la nation la plus puissante qui ait jamais existé". Le président Barack "Obama n'a pas les moyens de cacher qu'Oussama a été tué en présence de ses enfants et de ses épouses" au Pakistan, pays "dont les lois ont été violées, la dignité nationale offensée et les traditions religieuses outragées".

"CRAINTE ET INSÉCURITÉ"

"Comment va-t-il empêcher maintenant que les épouses et les enfants de la personne exécutée en dehors de toute loi expliquent ce qui s'est passé et que ces images soient transmises dans le monde entier ? s'interroge Fidel Castro, 84 ans, qui a abandonné le pouvoir en 2006 pour des raisons de santé. Assassiner (Ben Laden) et le jeter dans les profondeurs de la mer démontre crainte et insécurité et le transforme en un personnage encore plus dangereux."

Rappelant aussi la référence faite par Obama aux victimes du 11-Septembre, Fidel Castro rappelle "les millions" de victimes des "guerres injustes déclenchées par les Etats-Unis en Irak, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodge, Cuba et de nombreux autres pays". "Le terrorisme international ne se résoudra jamais par la violence et la guerre", conclut l'ancien leader révolutionnaire.

Macnamara Ground Ops Coffee Machine, Romulus "le Cid-القائد

Toute commentaire politique sera du lieu de travaille a l'aeroport de Detroit, devant la machinea café du cafeteria. Dom Rodrique es devenu le cid, le qaa'id, à la fin de la piece de Corneille.

Voila ma commentaire politique le jour le nouveau président americain, Obama, continue à mal prononcer qa'ida, en disant qaida, comme Bush, ce dont nous autres, les profs d'angais, se servent pour expliquer le present continuous: 'en train de,' "qaida al hiyat". Nous devons faire attention en le faisant, de risque que le nouveau chef du service d'espionnage americain, le cheri du congress, Petreus, pense que nous autres les profs d'anglais organisent leur qaida. Mais tous ce que nous faisons, c'est d'enseigner l'anglais.


LE COMTE
Jeune présomtueux.
D. RODRIGUE
Parle sans t'émouvoir.
Je suis jeune, il est vrai; mais aux ames bien nées
La valeur n'attend point le nombre des années.
LECOMTE
Te mesurer à moi! qui t'a rendu si vain,
Toi, qu'on n'a jamais vu les armes à la main?
D.RODRIGUE
Mes pareils à deux fois ne se font point connaitre,
Et pour leurs coups d'essai veulent des coups de maitre.
LE COMTE
Sais-tu bien qui je suis?
D. RODRIGUE
Oui; tout autre que moi
Au seul bruit de ton nom pourroit trembler d'effroi.
Les palmes dont je vois ta tete si couverte
Sembloent porter ecrit le destin de ma perte.
J'attaque en témréraire un bras toujous vainqueur;
Mais j'aurai trop de force ayant assez de coeur.
A qui venge son pere il n'est rien d'impossible.
Ton bras est invaince, mais n'est pas invincible.

Shati' tea and falafel shop Nabdat Ali dates

All discussion of culture shall be from Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

The Nabdat Ali date, "plant of Ali" has a taste of the hot morning of the spring desert, with a slight hit of better-sweet, grassy smell of desert daisies. There is a mixture of sweetness, of course like a chewy cinnamon stick mixed with raw sugar cane, and the desert hyacinth.

McNamara Airport Ground Operations - Coffee Machine

«Vive la Commune! »
la Commune de Paris a 140ans. Pour I'occasion, I'Hotelde Ville de Paris presente des documents, affiches et manuscrits originaux dans le cadre de I'exposition« La Commune, 1871, Paris, capitale insurgee». Cette retrospective pennet de tout comprendre de !'insurrection du printemps 1871. « La commune: une histoire moderne», sur le site des Cordeliers (Paris, 6'), rappelle les grands chantiers ouverts par la revolte (separation de l'Eglise et de I'Etat, abolition de la peine de mort, emancipation des femmes). D'autres expositions et animations se tiennent dans les mairies d'arrondissement. Celie du 11', dernier lieu de reunion des Communards, est bien sur de la fete. Partout en France, on celebre aussi le soulevement: en region parisienne, a Narbonne (Aude), Chateauroux (Indre), Woippy (Moselle) et Baugy (Cher), ville natale de Gabriel Ranvier, qui proclama « Vive la commune!» le 28 mars, sur la place de I'Hotel de Ville de Paris. Jusqu'a l'abbaye de Neuminster, au Luxembourg_ • Melina Gazsi (PHOTOS BHVP-ROGER VIOLLET) « « La Commune. 1871, Paris, capitaIe insurgee», Hotel de Ville de Paris, 29, rue de Rivoli. Paris 4" Jusqu'au 28 mai Entree gratuite. Tel . 01-42-76-5153. «La Commune: une histoire moderne». les Cordeliers.15, rue de l'Ecolede-Medecine, Paris 6'. du 28 mai au 19 juin Commune 1871org
Photos en pdf

Paris, Café de Flore...Fetes Gallantes de Verlaine

Rimbaud, qui a ecrit le bateau ivre peut-etre pour Verlaine? Tous les deux ont vecu la commune.