My living cost rose a fraction of a percent. I can't feel it yet.
Briefcases of democracy arrive in Ramallah. I'm having a
Summer of drugs in San Francisco.
Palestinian bureaucrats tour both the Arabian
Gulf and the Persian Gulf putting money in their Chicago holsters.
This is not suicide bribery
This is back pay for clerks
Bread not bullets
World peace begins at home in Gaza
The international home of bullets and babies.
Call her an inmate in the kitchen cubing carrots
Ends up washing dishes before the fire began.
The oil began to burn
Became smoke and flame, a seed
That will not be planted.
The planet exfoliates headlines
Frame by frame I pay
The price
For supermarket meat by studying Tuscan.
I have a reason
To live because they want me to die.
A last goodbye
To the laughing ass, my soul says.
Underworld wide web bidding up
Stock in life while the cost of
Living it is not known.
Cook until syrup
Spins a web and you
Are absorbed.
Beat the whites until frothy. Beat the whites
Until they are stiff. Nests drop by spoonfuls
On prepared sheets. Whole milk and grated
Zest of orange. Heat until melted and dissolved.
Hazel nuts roast until their skin is loose. Hazel nuts
Wrapped in sheets sweating until their skins rub off.
Cook until the top springs back when
Lightly touched. All butter should be salted butter.
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the CULT OF TRADITION. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. It was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. There can be no advancement of learning
Majid Suleiman al Balushi, Hospitality worker, "I do not think that women taking part in sporting competitions is a good idea. See, this is against our culture. In our culture, it's not considered decent for women to go out, work, and participate in sports. The woman's role is to look after the house and her children, cook and clean and look pretty for her husband. Traditionally this is what has been happening. It is the men who are supposed to be breadwinners and not women. Men cannot live under the shadow of women."
2. Traditionalism implies the REJECTION OF MODERNISM. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as IRRATIONALISM. 3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of ACTION FOR ACTION'S SAKE. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism. The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values. 4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, DISAGREEMENT IS TREASON.
Ahmed Harib al Hosni, Government employee: "The participation of women in sports is a vital sign of our progress. At the same time, we've got to take care of our local conditions and culture. We can't quite replicate the West totally. We need to follow the needs of our culture, and see to it that progress of women is enhanced without the ill effects of the West."
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural FEAR OF DIFFERENCE. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition. 7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the OBSESSION WITH A PLOT, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon SELECTIVE POPULISM, a qualitative populism, one might say. For Ur-Fascism, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. But no large quantity of human beings can have a common will...
Sultan Sulaiman al Khadoori, Student: "We need to make sure that we are secular in our thought and approach."
"Traditional Culture" is constructed from appropriated text: Umberto Eco, Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt" and TheWeek, #161 (Muscat 2006).
Nicholas Karavatos is currently an Assistant Professor of Language & Literature at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Graduate of Humboldt State University and New College of California's Poetics Program. Poems have appeared in Blackbox, Cherry Bleeds, Country Activist, debt, Earth First! Radical Environmental Journal, Humboldt-Central American Solidarity Newsletter, Log, Minotaur, mirage[periodical], Paisley Moon, Prosodia, San Fernando Poetry Journal, Steelhead Special, Tight, Thieves Jargon, Travelling Poet, and Toyon.