The Netherlands is a country known for its religious, ideological and ethnical tolerance. But what is perhaps less known is that it is also a country religiously divided into a northern part dominated by a culture of Calvinism and a southern part, which is predominantly Catholic. Today, when people speak of ‘below the rivers’ they refer to the Catholic provinces and when they talk about ‘above the rivers’ they are pointing to the Calvinist provinces north of the geographical border of the rivers Maas, Waal and Rhine, which roughly run parallel to this historical and cultural border.
When the Netherlands declared independence from Spain in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht and were recognized by the peace agreement with Spain by the signing of the Treaty of Munster in 1648, ‘the Low Lands’ (as the Netherlands is literally translated), did not include the southern provinces. Only with the defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 were these provinces included, and not until 1831 when Belgium gained independence were the borders constituted that comprise the Netherlands as we know it. Culturally though, the southern provinces and especially the province of Limburg (the hind leg of the Dutch lion) where I grew up belonged to the Catholic sphere of influence. Even in present day the Netherlands, it makes a huge difference in attitude and perspective on life if you are from above or from below the rivers. Read more of this article »
Posted in Netherlands, Op-Ed
A few decades ago, we lived in the province of Kwazulu Natal,a lush and tropical part of South Africa. Many of our friends still live there; one couple was stopped a while back by a (black) man they did not recognise. He however knew they were friends of my mother. They did not recognise him because he had been a teenager when they last met, and now looked very different in his late thirties. A large and proud Zulu man, with very dark skin and close-cropped peppercorn hair, he cut an imposing figure.
This man, Charles, called my mother here in the Western Cape, and when she went to KZN for a holiday she contacted him and they met up. He told her his story. She relayed it to me, and now I am passing it on to you.
Charles is a Zulu from KZN, and when he was young he lived with his mother in a shack in a township. She was working but there was not enough money with her small wages, so when he started high school he looked for some kind of job to help put bread on the table. It was at this stage that he started working for us as a garden boy. Read more of this article »
Posted in Op-Ed, South Africa
Summer came again, as it does every year for so many years now. I packed my suitcases and drove out of boring Zgharta, our winter village, and headed toward the mountains. On each turn along the ascending road, a mysterious mountain of pyramid shape always caught my sight and imagination. On top of the mountain rose the Cathedral of Saydet al-Hosn, a new church overshadowing a small old one.
It was like a mysterious power mesmerized my eyes and pulled me up along the road. Time seemed to loose its ticking until I passed the pyramid shaped mountain and reached my home in Ehden. Within a few days, Ehden was crowded with people inhabiting their summer homes. And the road directly up to the Cathedral of Saydet al-Hosn swelled with cars. Crowds of pedestrians took short cuts off the road to walk directly up the sacred mountain.
A weird phenomenon captivated our souls and opened up our minds, as we approached the Cathedral. The air changed, allowing a more subtle breathing as it entered our realms and elevated our spirits. We were like pilgrims; we still are now, generation after generation, performing the same rites, over and over again, summer after summer, while the passing moments on the peak of that mountain are eternal. Read more of this article »
For many nights when I return, late, I’ve found a donkey lying at the dark corner of a dirty street. One front leg is broken and I am sure he cannot move. Always I make a plan to do something for him, but in the morning I forget. Both my own legs are fine and I have to do a lot of work to survive until my front leg is also broken.
There is something more to this donkey: it bears a remarkable resemblance to Hussani Poweley. Who is Hussani Poweley?
Let me tell you the story of that man.
When I learned the first ten numbers of calculations,
I came to know that Hussani Poweley was a human being. Though it is a study of humanities that enable us to recognize Man, in my case it was mathematics, which enabled me to identify Humans.
My father first tested my studies by asking how many animals were in our courtyard. I replied confidently: Nine. “No there are not nine, my son,” my father retaliated with the same confidence. But according to my learning there were nine, and to prove the truth I started counting on my tender fingers: “Two cows, three goats, one mare, one donkey, one dog, and one Hussani Poweley — so that is nine.” Read more of this article »
Andrzej Adamczewski yearns to transcend Leczyca, a small town in provincial Poland, and become a famous artist in the west. His apprentice, Roman, dreams to escape his poverty by owning his own design studio and a western sports car. Intuitively they blame each other for their frustrations. In reality, their fates are intertwined in small town clashes between old and new Poland. When Ela, an aspiring film director from Lodz, visits Leczyca, Andrzej regains hope. But can hope survive in a town where a mythical devil, Baruta, guards over the people’s fate? Read more of this article »
The hodja was talking with tremendous speed. He was sitting cross legged on a thin cushion, waving the upper part of his body to and fro in harmony with his words as he spoke.
His eyes were fixed on those of the six boys sitting in front of him in two rows, aged between eleven and fifteen, crossed legged as himself, on a worn out wool carpet two meters by six. The only window in the room near to the ceiling was covered with a thick cloth, and the damp patches on the white washed walls suggested that they were below the level of the pavement. All six of the pupils and the hodja wore similar outfits. A long robe covering the whole body; white shirt tightly buttoned up to the neck; baggy trousers; a turban girded on the head, and white socks. The shoes were left by the side of the cracked wooden door.
The long black beard of the hodja was stained with saliva from his foaming mouth which had gushed words nonstop for the last fifteen minutes. The day’s subject was impious women whose sins were enough to get them boiled in the hot waters of hell’s cauldron in the after life. “They show their hair to you, they walk around with bare legs, they call you to sin. The Devil boils the cauldron, the Devil orders them, the Devil orders them, the Devil orders them, to drag you in, to drag you in, to drag you in….”
The door creaked open, letting in the tall figure of a man. The hodja paused suddenly and jumped to his feet in respect. The six turbaned heads turned around to see the new comer. The man picked up a black robe which was hanging from a peg on the wall beside the door. It matched the size of his big body and he wore it over his expensive navy blue suit decorated with a red silk necktie, then he fished out a green scull cap from its pocket and covered his bald head. He stroked his short trimmed white beard as he walked towards the hodja, his penetrating black eyes scanning the young boys. Read more of this article »
I was going to entitle this article “Islam and the Arabian Mind,” but it would have been a little predictable and over generalized. I think that in order to appreciate the ways in which religion permeates every aspect of life in the Middle East, the concept of “Inshaallah” is a good place to start.
I have spent around ten years on the Arabian peninsula, working a long way from home, and I think it has taken me this long to understand the Arabic concept of “Inshaallah” and the fatalistic concept of life and death that prevails in that desert kingdom. About a year ago, a Saudi I knew well died in a car crash. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was precipitated out of the back seat of a car his friend was driving head first through the windscreen. The others in the car survived because they had been wearing seat belts. However, on offering condolences, I heard the same point of view repeated time and time again. “There was nothing anyone could have done. ‘Inshaallah.’ It was God’s will: his time had come.” Of course, this totally ignored the fact that the victim had decided not to take a basic safety precaution.
First, what does “Inshaallah” mean? The usual translation given is “God Willing.” However, “Inshaallah” goes a lot further than that. It includes the idea that we are all at the mercy of God or Allah in every moment of our lives. “Will the plane come on time?” “Yes…Inshaallah.” “Will I get the money tomorrow?” “Of course…Inshaallah.” Read more of this article »
Posted in Op-Ed, Saudi Arabia
It wasn’t until I moved to the US that I started drinking coffee regularly and became what they call in the Netherlands a ‘koffieleut’, which translates literally into ‘coffee socialite.’ Although the average European drinks more coffee per year than the average American, the cultural importance and its effects on the average European seems to me smaller than that on the average American. After all, coffee is a cultural obsession in the United States.
Chains with thousands of branches like Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks dominate US daily street life. Especially in the morning (90% of coffee consumed in the US is in the morning), millions of white foamy cups with boldly imprinted pink and orange logos bob across the streets in morning rush hour and on the train. Coffee drive-ins are a saving grace for the rushing army of helmeted and tattooed construction workers. During lunch break, men and women in savvy business suits duck into coffee shops. Students chill out from early afternoon till late evening on comfy couches at coffee lounges around campus. Police officers clutch coffee cups while guarding road construction sites on the highway. In short, coffee drinkers in the United States can be found just about anywhere you go.
This mass-psychotic ritual causes Americans to associate Europe above all with cars that oddly do not contain cup holders (to an American this is like selling a car without tires), or with the unbelievably petite cups of coffee European restaurants serve, so small that my father-in-law had to always order two cups of coffee. It is my strongest conviction that the easily agitated and obsessed nature of the ‘New Englander’ can be blamed on the monster-size cups of coffee they consume. Not without reason is the word ‘coffee’ derived from the Arab ‘qahwa’ meaning ‘that which prevents sleep.’ Arabs have cooked coffee beans in boiling water since as far back as the 9th century and drank the stimulating extract as an alternative to the Muslims’ forbidden alcohol. Read more of this article »
Commuting to the Office in Tokyo
An eight-car train is sliding into the platform, making a deep, hollow sound. Here I arrived a few minutes ago to catch this very train. It is still early. My eyes demand sleep in earnest. I rub them slowly. I can see some fifty other people on the platform, also waiting for the train. There are several children in school uniform, but most of the people appear to be office workers from the way they dress. Their dark suits glow in the heated morning light of August. The train comes to a halt, and the doors open. No one gets off. I step into the train and then look at my watch. It is 7:15 in the morning.
To reach my office, I take the Odakyu Line, one of many commuter trains connecting Tokyoís suburbs and the Shinjuku Station, Japanís busiest used by more than three million people a day. Each morning, hundreds of thousands of office workers and students take this line to migrate into the heartland of Tokyo. And for them, the cityís extensive network of trains and subways provides by far the most convenient and affordable means of transportation. But during the morning and evening peak hours, taking trains and subways is probably the least comfortable way to commute. They simply become overcrowded.
But at 7:15, it is not yet painful. I leave early to bypass the peak hours. All the seats are taken, but I can still find myself sufficient and comfortable space to read a book, or just to become lost in contemplation. The train is already on the move. It makes constant and industrial rhythms. I rub my eyes again. I stand by the left side door and look out the window. The train runs through residential areas, and familiar roads and houses greet me every morning. They do not change often, but they have expressions. Today, over one balcony of a deep red four-story apartment, a white futon is already hung and aired in the morning sun. Read more of this article »
“The River Rue
“offers quiet beauty to campers traveling through the back roads of Eastern Washington”
I grew up in an R.V. park. Not a trailer park, an R.V. park.
R.V., as in Recreational Vehicle, not mobile home.
Just so we are clear. This is a very important distinction, especially to me. An R.V. Park is for camping, vacation, family fun. A trailer park conjures up images (not always fair or accurate) of poor unintelligent people living in dirty trailers on a sectioned lot with a couple three-legged dogs running around.
Located in Washington State one mile from Lake Roosevelt, fourteen miles from the nearest town, two hours from the nearest place worth being, five hours from Seattle. Weekend fun was a keg in a field if you were popular enough to be invited (which most of the time I was not). I began working for my parents at the age of three and stopped at the age of twenty. What can a three-year old do you might ask? Well in my (and my sisterís) case we picked up trash for a penny a piece and received a nickel for each pop can. By the time I left, I was running the place when my parents were gone, and was the second ranking employee (my mom was the first).
I have a lot of stories from growing up in an RV park. I donít know if they are interesting to anyone but me, Iíd like to think they are. Of course, we all like to think our lives are interesting. So, in order to intrigue you, I give you ìThe life-threatening situation involving my dad and drug addled campers!î
To understand my story, and anything else I ever tell, you need to know two things. Read more of this article »