Tag: politics

by jad

Seattle: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 19

Part 1: #WIP I’ve been skirting around the topic of Seattle’s big, contradictory, & broken-open heart for a while now—pretty much since I moved here. The crisis has brought the different aspects of what I love and what I don’t love about this place in & out of focus, and an overall gestalt has gradually emerged: Seattle is a tender place—tender as in fragile, and sore, and almost too sensitive to touch, but also tender as in loving, and patient, and kind. That second sense of tenderness has bled out into the open during this lockdown in many ways; one … Continue reading “Seattle: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 19” →

by jad

#BusLineHeroes: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 18

Part 1: Becoming the Change This week, I’m stripping it all back to the bare tacks: I’m grateful for the stories I’m able to tell. @BusMapProject was a bit of tactical urbanism, a modest gambit to capture a global moment when participatory data and collective mapping were becoming en vogue, in the service of a sociotechnical artifact that was very much not—and in doing so, it was a lot more than that. It was an attempt at re-writing a story that Lebanese people told themselves about themselves. In place of chaos, we wrote of everyday ordering; instead of lawlessness, we … Continue reading “#BusLineHeroes: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 18” →

by jad

Holy Week: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 15

Part 1: Stations I-III This week is Holy Week. I briefly considered writing about something else—I’ve been thinking about time and how I mark it and what that means for the moments of your day that you share with me reading these—but after seeing @neighborhoodliturgy’s “Stations of the Cross” through South Lake Union, I knew that writing about anything else would be inauthentic to the actual arc of my gratitude, right here, right now. I don’t think the Stations are a thing back home like they are in the West—for me, the Way of Sorrows, a procession commemorating Jesus’ death … Continue reading “Holy Week: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 15” →

by jad

Syria: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 9

Part 1: The Citadel Al a’aqel zeena. “The mind is decoration”—or the mind is what makes one beautiful. I didn’t know it at the time, but those words on that shirt referencing a wartime radio play by the Lebanese artist I was about to see performing at the Damascus Citadel would perfectly summarize my sense of Syria for years to come. I’ve only ever had pleasant feelings in Syria, a place so close yet so distant, so foreign. I grew up in a country where you learned very quickly to stiffen up when a Syrian soldier was addressing you. My … Continue reading “Syria: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 9” →

by jad

Storytelling Strategies: Quote & By-Line

I’d like to interrupt this storytelling exercise I’ve been engaging in for the last few weeks to share an interesting convergence of narrative arcs in my life. This, here’s an article by @sarahngu, who graciously found space for my oddball story in her long-read on Christians who turned to socialism; if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know my arc was more of a loop-the-loop. I connected with Sarah through the DSA’s Religious Socialism mailing-list, and though I’ve found myself much less involved with that organization than I’d hoped, way back, two Advents ago, I really appreciated our … Continue reading “Storytelling Strategies: Quote & By-Line” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2019, Week 2

#Worthy “What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak—Christianity.” That’s a quote from Nietzsche’s The Antichrist. Nietzsche understood what—& how—Christianity valued, and he vehemently rejected it for that very reason. To his eyes, Christianity is worthless because it values the unworthy. Interestingly enough, Nietzsche didn’t really attack the person of Jesus the Christ; he called Jesus the “only one true Christian.” But he certainly got the Christ he opposed all wrong, & without the doctrine of the Incarnation—without the Advent story—that’s easy to do. With no appreciation of that mysterious move from the infinite … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2019, Week 2” →

by jad

November in the October Revolution

I’d been fighting back tears all October long, and had managed, quite successfully, to keep the tempests in their tiny bottles despite the highs and lows of this eventful month. Then some footage of a young man from Sidon emerged. This man is a metalhead, from what I could glimpse of his t-shirt in the aggressively framed video; the cinematography directs your eyes elsewhere—to his bloodstained teeth, to the fear in his eyes. “I didn’t mean it,” they have him say. Once more, with feeling. And the bottles fell off their shelves. And here they are, still falling—for this young … Continue reading “November in the October Revolution” →

by jad

#LebanonProtests in Seattle, Part 2

Seattle stands with the #LebanonProtests for the second Sunday in a row. Back home, a human chain was formed earlier today connecting cities across Lebanon’s coast in a show of unity, as the fissures begin to manifest on day 11 of the revolt. Pro-President friends and family have started to speak out after days of silence; moods swings in people once exuberant and supportive are more noticeable—maybe due to the daily inconveniences to ordinary lives, maybe thanks to pro-government agitprop, I don’t know. Tempers are flaring on the other side as well; the vanguards are in tension, with some raising … Continue reading “#LebanonProtests in Seattle, Part 2” →

by jad

Reflections on Bus Map Project in the October Revolution

Bus Map Project emerged just before the last wave of protests in 2015, and part of its DNA was a desire to see “less talk, more action.” We were tired of hearing the question: “where is the state?” At first, this alienated some of our potential allies. What we wanted was to see more people stepping into their rightful place as “the people.” At the end of the day, we are “the state,” because: 1) people are its source of legitimacy, 2) and people are what make it all function, through everyday “doing.” It’s so heartening to see the current … Continue reading “Reflections on Bus Map Project in the October Revolution” →

by jad

#LebanonProtests in Seattle

I’ve had a problem with the flag since I was a kid—a story for another time—and from 2005 onwards, my relationship with that objectively-attractive piece of visual communication has been, at the very least, “complicated”—there’s another story here too, that I’ll also save for later. So color me surprised; this particular wave of protests seems to be indirectly bringing about a cessation of hostilities between us, maybe even a thaw. If a bit of nationalist mythology could ever signify anything more, it’s what you’re doing right now, Lebanon. A signifier is finding its referent. This was from Seattle’s show of … Continue reading “#LebanonProtests in Seattle” →