Poetess Defies, Shocks Saudi Arabia

*** A brave woman in the Middle East dares to criticize her religion and her culture - through a live TV national poetry competition, the Arab world version of American Idol.





Female Poet in Saudi Arabia Heard on Live TV


From Denny: It takes courage to go against the tide of common opinion. It takes courage to criticize your own religion, your own government, your own society and culture. And in Saudi Arabia, where women have absolutely no rights for self-determination, that courage is both rare and rarely rewarded by the men of the country. The predictable end results are always death threats and promises of persecution and prosecution.

With so much going on in the Middle East lately, especially the American combat troop pullout of Iraq, women's rights in the Arab world continue to be center stage. Women's groups worry about the women in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Afghan Parliament there are many women who have won seats and they are concerned they will lose those seats once America pulls out of Afghanistan. They know the American distaste for remaining much longer in a failed war and wonder how much time they have to make a difference in their country.

Poetess Hissa Hilal of Saudi Arabia

Meet poetess Hissa Hilal of Saudi Arabia, whose story was featured this past May, around Memorial Day. She decided to enter her national poetry competition, "Million's Poet," that is only populated by men who belabor the point about how much they love soccer. Other poetry features the romantic love of the Bedouin life.

"My poetry has always been provocative," said Hilal, a housewife and mother of four from Saudi Arabia. "It's a way to express myself and give voice to Arab women, silenced by those who have hijacked our culture and our religion."

Hissa challenges Islamic extremists

Challenging extremism in her culture, her country and her religion is risky for this poetess. Since her appearance in the poetry competition she has received numerous death threats for daring to speak against the evils in her country. But then, that's how evil thrives, doesn't it? It thrives when good people refuse to stand against it. And, of all people, the one standing up to institutionalized evil is a woman poet, a 43-year-old mother of four, who had to get her husband's permission just to appear on the live TV show. Yet appear she did, knowing her prospects.

Poets are rock stars in the Arab world

In the Arab world, poets are as famous - and treated - like rock stars. On this show the top prize is $1 million. Hissa placed third in the competition among the usual poetry odes to family, soccer and life in the desert. Even though it was obviously a rigged "old boys network" Hissa did receive $800,000 of prize money for her efforts. She wants to afford better doctors for her autistic daughter and purchase a house with the winnings.

Hissa shocked the whole country when she took the stage

It was quite a shock for the entire country when a woman took the stage to recite her poem as one of the five finalists. She was dressed in full head-to-toe niqab with only small eye slits to view her world. Hissa did not waste time feeling self-conscious and launched into her incredibly controversial poem that slammed the conservative Muslim clerics who spread extremism and give Islam a bad name. She complained about the separation of men and women, in a country where a woman is not allowed to hold the hand of her husband in public.

The audience connected with Hissa's words and passion

Hissa struck a chord with the live audience and those watching at home, sending out her message to the world when she said, "Defeat fear and conquer every frightening cave. Do not live life with one eye looking behind." She railed against social and religious extremism, something which many Saudis also find disturbing. "Something is not going good. And somebody should talk about it," she said.

Life for women in Saudi Arabia

Remember that Saudi Arabia is a harsh place for women. They are not allowed to drive a car, not allowed to attend college or hold a job - unless permitted by a male relative. For American minds to understand her level of courage is to realize that in this culture the fact she dared to attend the poetry competition, and then dared more to recite her courageous poem questioning the bedrock of their society, well, that was one seriously rebellious act. It's a rebellious act that some segments of the society believe is worthy of death.

Hissa's childhood with a strict family

Hissa said she used to write under a pen name, fearing her own strict family's reaction. But, since the TV show, she has decided to come out of the shadows of fear and write under her own name. She said she felt transformed by the experience. Hissa also has won something rare in Saudi Arabia for women: a platform from which to speak.

Poetry Academy judge speaks up for Hissa

"Hissa Hilal is a courageous poet," said judge Sultan al-Amimi, who manages Abu Dhabi's Poetry Academy. "She expressed her opinion against the kind of fatwas that affect people's lives and raised an alarm against these ad hoc fatwas coming from certain scholars who are inciting extremism."

Hissa's inspiring words to other women who want to change the world

"I want to say something to the world," she said. "And give hope to all millions of Arab people: if you dream in your heart, one day if you believe deeply in your heart, in God, it will happen."

"I'm happy. I said what I wanted to say. I reached what I wanted to reach," she said. "Maybe the girls and ladies would say, 'nothing is impossible.' Since I was a little girl I wanted my voice to be like a message in a bottle, reaching the other side of the ocean."

This woman of courage has inspired millions to rise up and consider a better life, accomplished from the simplicity of a powerful voice heard beneath a veil. She is a woman who wrote a poem - and challenged an entire country.







*** Photo by Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage/AP

Saudi Woman Criticizes Muslim Clerics in TV Poetry Contest – Gets Death Threats

Bravery of Arab TV 'Idol' - Veiled poetess hits 'vicious, barbaric clerics' - While most regale the audience with odes to the beauty of Bedouin life and glory of their rulers, Hissa Hilal stunned audiences last week by attacking Muslim religious leaders as "vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind," and guilty of "preying like a wolf" on people seeking peace.


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Beautiful Illustrated Quotations - spiritual quotes, philosophy
Poems From A Spiritual Heart - poetry
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Dennys Funny Quotes - humor

Libations Friday! 8 May 2009

New coffee recipes, new coffee site, original poem AND it's Friday! Does Life get any better? :)

Coffee Photo by once and future @ flickr

From Denny: With the “hurry up and wait all day” jury duty this week I didn’t get a chance to pre-load any of my posts. They were keeping us longer than usual as a Mexican drug lord was on trial, complete with over a million dollars in drugs as evidence and a SWAT team to protect his sorry criminal self from assassination. Let's hear the applause for where our tax dollars go: forced to protect mocking criminals while awaiting trial. Such is the downside of a civilized society dealing with the savage violent members.

So you can guess how many people wanted to be on that jury... I didn't really care if they picked me or not as I can't be intimidated and have no use for bullies. I was the last person to be paneled and once they found out I was a journalist I made the immediate cut. Many of the jurors complained that it was a bit creepy giving out your home address and other personal information in open court since the accused has the right to know where his accusers live. Talk about a law that needs to be changed - like yesterday!

Apologies for any inconvenience to my readers as I know you clock in from time zones all over the world. Usually I try to load at least one post a day by early morning my time (and Canada’s) so folks across The Pond in Europe have a read by late afternoon.

Hello to the folks in Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Greece as I’m surprised to find so many readers from Eastern Europe. Hello to those of you in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark!

As to the folks in the Mideast - like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - and Asia - like lots in India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia - Thank You for checking in for a visit!

Now on to the coffee portion! Found this interesting coffee site: BestOfCoffeeNews.com.

Here are some of their coffee advice tips:

Troubleshooting Coffee

Does your coffee taste bad? There are several possible reasons why the coffee doesn't taste right. Here are some possible solutions to common coffee problems.

• Stale coffee beans or stale grounds? This will create a recipe for bitter coffee. Get fresh coffee!

• A dirty pot? An unclean coffee pot makes bitter coffee. Follow the coffee maker cleaning instructions.

• Poor water quality? Typical city water may lead to bitter tasting coffee. Use clean water if possible.

• Using an incorrect ratio of coffee grounds to water? If the ratio isn't right, the coffee can turn bitter, or make the coffee taste like nothing.

Coffee Maker Maintenance

How to you clean your coffee maker? In order to be able to keep making good coffee, do this every month:

1. In case you have a built-in filter, take it out.

2. Fill your carafe with water and add two tablespoons of vinegar.

3. Pour the mixture of water and vinegar into the coffee maker and turn on the coffee maker.

4. Let it brew halfway through the brewing cycle and stop the machine for about 15 minutes. Resume the brewing process and let the brewing finish.

5. Now, rinse the carafe out and brew plain water through the system - twice. Rinse out the carafe, and you're now all done!

Here are two recipes from BestOfCoffeeNews.com:

This is definitely one I’ve not seen. I suppose if it’s made with fresh farmer’s market yogurt it could be outstanding, though I doubt I’d try it with what’s available in most grocery stores stuffed full of preservatives, additives and sugar.

Coffee Yogurt Drink

Ingredients

• 8 ounces plain yoghurt
• 8 ounces cold black coffee
• Sugar to taste
• Ground cinnamon

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a blender and serve in a long glass with a straw. Decorate with cinnamon. Serves 2.

***
This one sounds refreshing for a summer drink with all this mint!

Peppermint Coffee Cream

Ingredients

• 2 ounces white creme de menthe
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 8 ounces hot freshly made black coffee
• lightly whipped double cream
• mint chocolate cut into thin slivers

Warm a brandy glass. Add the creme de menthe and the sugar. Add the hot coffee, stir well. Pour the whipped cream over a spoon onto the top of the coffee. Decorate with the slivers of mint chocolate. Drink through the cream without mixing.

***



Photo by Sarah Sitkin @ flickr

Now on to the poem. How many times do you find yourself amused by something small that happens in your daily life? Parents and grandparents experience this often. Do try to record those amusing real life incidents - if only to write about years later. Look at it this way: you can embarrass your kids at their wedding, entertaining the wedding guests with funny stories.

Though I don’t have children there are times when my husband is a great substitute. Most days he is the hard-nosed tough-minded businessman. And then his Irish side pops up out of nowhere to hijack his personality and he is like a daredevil nine-year-old on a sugar rush! He definitely keeps my life from being too serious.

No matter how annoying he gets I still enjoy watching him at play – or should I say watching him “in play” like some strategic game plan like you see in sports. It’s like a coach called Life handed him a playbook and told him to execute it! The way some people’s minds work when mildly stressed and the inventive solutions they create…

As you read this light-hearted and total silliness ditty, think of the amusing childrens' writer Dr. Seuss' “musical words” in your head and you will have the right frame of mind to be amused and follow the beat of the poem. Oh, and don't forget to write fan letters to my husband! :)

Have a good weekend, everyone! Thanks for visiting!




Pastel Drawing by Denny Lyon


The Husband Who Cleans

Lunching together at home my husband and me
One Friday summer at noon: Horror happened!
Spilled my red sauce dots, splat! All over ivory

My husband he comforted me, No big deal!
I’ll clean it later, good intentions he had
OK, I agreed, forgetting ‘til many hours that late

Like many a wife I circled back to clean
But not found those red dots! So astonished was I!
My husband proudly approached to show me you see
Pointed to where the red spot dots had been dining
And declared the ivory cloth so spotless and cleaned

I peered closer, doubting, to examine for wet
Found none, now perplexed, now downright puzzled,
What ever did you use to clean “It”?

He solved the problem, can’t you see?
Rotating ‘round the tablecloth one place setting
Grinning wildly, he lifted up the long S & P tray
He exclaimed, so proud he was to me, See? I cleaned!
The red dots they remained, new home, well hidden,
Under the accommodating accomplice S & P tray...



*Male Motto: If you can’t see it, then it’s clean!

*Disclaimer: My husband wants to make sure everyone knows it was the woman who was the table slob… He’s sensitive.


Denny Lyon
Copyright 18 July 2008
All Rights Reserved

Video: Re-educating Osama Bin Laden's Disciples

From Denny: Quite a compelling short interview from a former very young disciple of the international terrorist, Bin Laden. It's interesting how when you start to mature mentally you start to suddenly see the flaws in former authority figures. Take a look. Below is the print story CBS ran in conjunction with the videos for the 60 Minutes segment that was also featured here on The Social Poets on Tuesday.




"Khalid al Jhani once followed and fought for Osama bin Laden. Now he mocks him. The former al Qaeda soldier and Guantanamo Bay inmate is a "graduate" of a reprogramming school for former jihadists in his native Saudi Arabia.

Jhani appears in a David Martin story about the Saudi program to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, May 3, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Jhani is one of 117 Saudis detained in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11 who ended up in Guantanamo Bay and who have been since released from the facility. Saudi Arabia - the native country of most of the 9/11 terrorists - is attempting to change the mindsets of the less violent jhadists. They seem to have succeeded with Jhani. "I call [bin Laden] a flip flop. He said 'I am not going to let you down'…but I saw that in Tora Bora…he left everybody behind him, you know?" Jhani says, laughing.

He went to Afghanistan in 1996 convinced it was the right thing to do and fought with bin Laden's forces in their last stand against the Americans in the Tora Bora Mountains. "I have been involved with this jihad thing since I was young," says Jhani, who spent four years under American guard at Guantanamo Bay. "I was believing that I had to help the Muslims and this was [the] right way to do [it]," he tells Martin.

Saudi Arabia determined that Jhani was non-violent enough for the "soft approach" rehabilitation. He not only received religious re-indoctrination, but was given therapy, a car, money to get married and the government bought him a house. These materialistic incentives aside, the religious aspect of the reprogramming may be the most important and effective says Chris Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment, who has studied Saudi Arabia's internal security programs. "If you look at how people get into violence it will tell you something about how they get out," he says. "The people who are religiously motivated …can benefit from religious discussions."

Dr. Abdul Rahman al Hadlaq, a Saudi psychiatrist involved in the rehabilitation program, says "We are getting very good results. I can say this without reservation." But so far, 10 percent of the "graduates" of this soft approach have gone back to terrorism. "It cannot be perfect," says al Hadaq. When pressed by Martin that because some jihadists can become suicide bombers, that even a 90-percent success rate may be not enough, he responds, "Let me assure you, these kinds of people you are talking about are not going to be [let] out from jail."

There are 4,000 real or suspected terrorists in Saudi jails and Boucek says that's down from a high of perhaps 12,000 swept up in a dragnet after 9/11. "There are no first or second tier level operatives in the Kingdom. They've all been killed or captured," according to Boucek. Says al Hadaq, "We have hard approach. We have soft approach."

Produced by Mary Walsh
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Video: How Saudis Are Rehabilitating Former Guantanamo Prisioners

"David Martin talks about his upcoming 60 Minutes report on Saudi Arabia's efforts to rehabilitate former Guantanamo prisoners and former jihadists."

From Denny: This is something everyone in America has been wondering about in the back of their minds. Just how do we clean up the Bush and Cheney years' HUGE global messes?

The Republicans held far too many political prisoners like some brutal cavalier dictatorship third-world government. Now most of those men are, well, for lack of a better word: insane. Waterboarded 185 times on one guy alone and still no usable information should tell you two things: one, that torture isn't working, and, two, that man as your prisoner has already lost his mind and isn't about to find it any time soon.

The question on everyones' minds is: What do you do with a large insane population that were driven insane first from propaganda in their own country and then by torture when captured by their enemies? Any way you look at it they are weak minds, and, therefore, also unstable and unpredictable in the long term.

This 60 Minutes segment begins to address that question and discuss what the Saudis are trying to do to help those men regain a sound mind.


Watch CBS Videos Online

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• Obama says waterboarding was torture (huffingtonpost.com)

Video: Saudi Child Bride Case

From Denny: This controversial case has angered people all over the world, most notably bloggers, as it is a violation of international law regarding minors and children’s rights. The Saudis are as tired of living under their conservatives as Americans became of ours. At least we get to “throw the bums out” with an election.

The vast majority of Saudis are equally disturbed by an eight-year-old ordered by law to remain in an arranged marriage with a 47-year-old man. The marriage cancelled the debts of the child’s father.

My not so humble opinion of this so-called “father”? He’s a scumbag and a weaseling worm to use his very young child for his own personal benefit.

It also makes a person wonder if that conservative Saudi judge is one of those guys who is secretly part of some pedophile ring for allowing this outrage to stand. It's the only explanation that makes any sense for its tone-deaf attitude to the will of the child's family, the Saudi people and the court of public opinion - all who can clearly make a better and wiser decision.