Sad news from Syria

Every few days, the BBC Arabic will have a report about all the places that have been bombed within the last two days in Syria. It's always a long list, always many places. On this particular occasion, they were describing all the places that were bombed during the holy Muslim day of Eid.

Here's a bomb falling on Douma, near Damascus:

And here there's tremors in Tiblisa, near Homs:

This girl in Halab (Aleppo) is sharing her Eid wishes:

I wish I could get back to my school and play with my friends and I wish that I could play during Eid, and I hope that the whole world will be happy.

Eid reports from the BBC Arabic, and Iran and Saudi have a fight

Today is a Muslim holiday. It had both happy celebrations and tragedies. The BBC Arabic was reporting from many countries.

They showed celebrations from Egypt. They showed people praying in Mecca:

Then, they talked about Syria, and it's difficult with many displaced people and many refugees in different areas:

In Afghanistan, they interviewed some of the people who had come out to pray. One man said: We all are here praying for peace, and today in Afghanistan, the chance for peace is greater than it has ever been.

Then they went to Russia, where all three mosques in Moscow were packed.

This is the largest mosque in Moscow. They interviewed some people there, too, but I don't remember what they said.

Then they moved on to Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims of any other country in the world:

They spent a lot of time talking about Iraq. They showed the markets where people were out buying new clothes:

This lady said: every Eid, we like to come out and buy candy and lemon drops.

They had some rides out for kids to enjoy:

 The streets were full:

This man was preparing the rides at the amusement park. He said: yes, we've been working very hard to get everything in order, so that when the kids come everything will be clean and ready for them. 

And some people were in the cemeteries praying for the dead:

One of the people interviewed said: we pray for peace, may God bring peace to Iraq.

Meanwhile, a bomb went off in a mosque in Yemen, killing ten people. The BBC Arabic showed the debris left over. The bomb is supposed to have been detonated by 'Daa-esh', aka ISIS, and there are some overtones of the bombing campaign Saudi has been waging on Yemen involved.

They had quite a bit of discussion about it. I wasn't paying attention, but this man was live from Yemen's capital Sanaa:

Meanwhile, there was a stampede at Mecca in which over 700 people were killed. This was actually the top story today. It was the top story, and the topic of an hour-long call-in show, and it was otherwise discussed at length. They showed the press conference given by the Saudi police, in which they said that they couldn't help it, there's a lot of people there and there's no solution as simple as people think.

But the best part came during the call-in show. They were talking to a Saudi man:

The BBC Arabic moderator told the Saudi man: you know, Iran is not buying it. Iran says that Saudi should do more to protect pilgrims in Mecca, that it's your responsibility, and you're not doing a good job, and it's your fault.

Says the Saudi man:

You know, Iran is at war against us. If the sky fell, then Iran would probably blame Saudi Arabia for it. Iran is an evil country in all ways. Back in (some year), it was the Iranian pilgrims who caused the deaths of hundreds of Saudis and 60 other pilgrims of various citizenships.

So in short, the guests of the BBC Arabic would like to again extend wishes for peace and understanding on this holy day!

Eid in Jordan and getting new clothes

This is a major Muslim holiday. I kept trying to take pictures of the kids prancing around on their evenings out in their new clothes, but I never seemed to get the timing right. So I'll describe the clothes here:

- a girl in a forest green-colored dress that was all ruffled in the skirt, just like those Spanish dresses that flounce out and make a triangle at the bottom.

- a girl in shimmering folds of a long violet dress.

- a little three year old in a long blue dress with a purse and white sleeves, kind of looked like Snow-White's dress.

- an older girl in a sparkly gold top.

 The toy shops get really popular

 Blurry shot of kids

This sign says: "May you be happy and in well-being every year" (standard Eid greeting)

گل عام و انتم بخير

Annoying song on Arabic TV

During Ramadan, TV channels have special soap operas, and here is the opening song to one of them. It is soooooo annoying.

This soap opera is called 'High Heels'. That's even stupider. If you want to watch it, then just go onto YouTube and search for: كعب عالي

This is on a TV channel from Dubai.

Egyptian harassment

(October 18, 2013)

A new police force in Egypt is patrolling the streets, entirely made up of women officers.

This police officer explains that women will feel more comfortable reporting harassment to a female police than to a male police. Apparently, harassment and groping of women is epidemic on Egyptian streets. This all makes great sense, because you know how we Arabs are always lecturing the west about how trashy your morals are, but somehow, our men can't seem to keep their hands to themselves.

Here is a guy being arrested. Now he wants to cover his face up.

These Egyptian men want to fight harassment, so they are part of an organization called Basma that records incidents. I think the report was showing how these volunteers are keeping watch in a square in Cairo where those female police officers were not present, and that although the female officers are out and about, there's still too few of them.

 

Finally, they interviewed some women to describe how they felt about harassment at the hands of some of their Arab brothers. They used words like "disrespect" and one of them I think said that each year on Eid (the Muslim holiday) she and her friends are always hoping they will be able to go out and enjoy the city, and yet each time they try, they face all sorts of scandalous behaviors instead.

People trying in Iraq

(October 15, 2013)

This was the day of Eid, the "big" Eid, the Eid when everyone is going on the Hajj. On this holy day in the Islamic calendar, some Muslims decided to blow up a mosque in Kirkuk, a city in Iraq. I think the report said a couple of kids were killed as they were gathering up their Eid candy.

I think that other Iraqis were trying to keep some spirit of community and unity by having meals like this:

(which I'm sure a bunch of women cooked, but I'm not sure where they are. They did not appear in any of the video footage.)

And this sheikh was saying some nice things about peace.

Eid in Pakistan

Check out these photos of smiling, happy Pakistanis.

 

These women are looking at high heels.

 

These women with their gossamer wraps and patterned scarves are browsing through a market, looking for stuff to buy to mark the occasion with.

Finally, my friend made this video called "The Vibrancy of Lahore". Lahore is a city in Pakistan! The video is awesome!