Mahmood's Den

The next meeting is almost upon us, note the 7th of September in your diaries please and don’t forget to take out two hours of your time for this get-together. More than ever, it’s going to be worth it for you all as we will have some special visitors joining us, pioneers of blogging from another Gulf state is all I can tell you at the moment as final plans have not been finalised yet, but should be early next week.

I know that a lot of you have spoken to me about your unhappiness with the current venue we use, in the Diplomatic area, and some suggested that we revert back to the Country Club. Some even suggested a day change from Thursday.

Could you please take some time to jot down your thoughts on not only the timing and location of our meet-ups, but most importantly on how to make the event more successful and how you would organise it.

Let us know your suggestions on all of these issues, please.

Our living room is back!, originally uploaded by malyousif.

We just finished cleaning and moving the furniture back into their usual places, my dad’s paintings are up, so I feel that we are at home now… it’ll take another week for them to finish the bathroom, but that’s another story.

One facet of a leader in any stream of life is the capability of foretelling what an action or inaction could produce to a reasonable degree of certainty. Another is the capability of weighing risks to rewards.

Nasrallah, by his own admission last night on the Lebanese NewTV, and as I have written before, has suffered a huge lapse of judgement at best; at worst, he has declared his incapacity to continue to run a militia organization or even culpability in killing over one thousand human beings, and causing various injuries to thousands more, the destitution of over a million, and the destruction of a country already limping into what would have been a rosy future.

To me listening to him stating categorically that he “would not have done it” if he thought kidnapping a couple of soldiers would have resulted in such an overwhelming response by the Israelis left me in shock and bewilderment…

“We did not think that there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war of this scale and magnitude,” Sheikh Nasrallah said.

“Now you ask me if this was 11 July and there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war like the one that has taken place, would you go ahead with the kidnapping?

“I would say no, definitely not, for humanitarian, moral, social, security, military and political reasons.”
BBC News

Is this person worth being called a leader? One that cannot even envisage the possible scale of retaliation of a strong enemy in response to an act of war by kidnapping combatants? That means that one more of Nasrallah’s failing is the complete collapse of his intelligence apparatus, or at least wrongly listening to unworthy advisers.

All in all, he would have been served much better should he have kept his mouth shut. At least then, the Arabs and Muslims will have continued to sanctify him and continue to believe that he is the defender of the faith and the champion of the Arabs and Palestinians, the upholder of the Arab dignity and all the other nomenclatures he has been given.

The truth of the matter is he screwed up, but in doing so also demonstrated that his militia could stand up to the Israeli onslaught; and with his charisma and the already boiling passions in the Arab world against Israel, he has created a political victory none of his Arab compatriots have ever done before.

Even with that political victory, and in light of this interview, I contend that he should step aside and concentrate on his religious research and fatwas and let the government to decide how best to defend its country’s territories.

A personal cult does not a country make, and most certainly winning a battle does not a war victor make.

Or does he truly believe that Israel will not attack again when threatened?

Lantana and the lawn, originally uploaded by malyousif.

Apart from that, the bulbuls love them and their berries and their minty smell is quite nice too.

Have a wonderful Friday my friends…

I decided that I have had enough with the mess in the garden shed and it is high time that it got re-organised again, especially that the growing season is fast approaching and I need the space. So my son Arif and I attacked it this morning, and for a complete mess and no space left in it at all before we started, to a huge amount of space left afterwards tells you that keeping things organised pays in the end!

Have a wonderful Friday…

Amna’s results, originally uploaded by malyousif.

When asked how the hell did she manage all of that, and especially an A in Arabic, she said, and I quote: “I’ve been very very lucky!”

Now I have to go and buy her a new car.

Yeah sure!

I hope!

The problem was I think one file was overwritten when I upgraded from the older 1.5 version of WP to 2.x. I have wiped out the database, manually entered every single link, then pulled your defined contents (if you define your feed availability to only 10, then those were pulled, check your Options/Reading page in WP).

I have also updated the automated script to pull content every 30 15 minutes, instead of just every hour.

Do let me know if I have skipped your feed and I’ll fix it.

So far, the problems are with Rayyash, Qassoum and SilverGirl as the system cannot find feeds on their blogs, so please check guys and let me know when all is fixed and I’ll add it. In your response, please give me the full feed URL if you don’t mind.

Zara:

i feel angry at mahmood’s reaction. it surprises me to see him take this position. and it surprises me even more that people posting have not commented on it.

I feel angry at myself for jumping to this conclusion Zara. But follow my reasoning please: I’m a law abiding citizen who loves his country like the vast majority of my fellow Bahrainis. I am disgusted by the swathe of crimes we have had over the last few weeks, each one more horrific than the last. I am devestated that Mohammed and Sarah have lost their father in these circumstances.

I am disgusted by the continuous robberies and thefts which have become so common that they’re deemed unworthy of being reported.

I am disgusted by the muggings and violent crimes which appear to have risen to an alarming rate lately.

But that increase in crime cannot be blamed solely on the Ministry of Interior; however, the majority of the blame DOES fall at its doorsteps whether they like it or not. It is their mandate to ensure that people in this country are safe from harm. Unfortunately, they are remiss of that responsibility and the major gaping hole which people blame them for is non other than the complete loss of faith of the police.

Yes, the new minister has done wonders to the image, he brought some modern methods into the ministry, he has gotten rid of some of the expats who constituted the majority of its workforce, and in some sectors still do. He has started the Community Police initiative which people have come to like to see on the beat. He has even mounted some classes on human rights and the rights of people when apprehended to his own workforce. These are all good things which are much overdue.

But although these take away some of the bitterness of how people regard the police establishment in this country, it is not enough.

Would YOU for instance feel comfortable approaching a policeman or woman to ask for directions? I bet if you are over 30 you would not, as that generation has been conditioned from birth to fear these ogres. Even now, I would not feel comfortable talking to a policeman because the feeling in the back of my mind is that this guy, who probably didn’t even bother to finish his primary school has got so much power that he could throw me in prison and my family wouldn’t know that I was there for days if not weeks, now add to the fact that the guy couldn’t even speak my own language properly and you could not but feel aggrieved that the policing of this society has been abrogated and given to foreigners completely disconnected from our own ways and cultural nuances!

The same goes very true to those put in place not only in the police but also the military apparatus who lack education and modern outlook on the world, and who have a value system completely foreign to our own. What JJ mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg. I dare you, as a woman to go walk in one of their neighbourhoods in Riffa or any other of their congregation points.

And they are given guns too.

Yes, I realise that I am generalising here, and yes I recognise that some of them – probably a sizable portion of them – are good people and I am painting them with a broad brush. However look at the happenings concerning them in MY lifetime and you will realise my prejudices are shared by quite a lot of my generation.

Now let’s get back to the heinous crime of killing Mohammed, and let’s measure my reaction based on the facts above and the exigencies of the case:

1. Who in this country has free or easy access to guns?
2. Who in the past few years been involved in gun crimes in Bahrain?
3. What has been done to them?

The first I have already answered in the post. The second is clearly from the Ministry’s own statistics (don’t have a link) and what has been reported in the papers that they are of the military or security forces, and the third point is I don’t know! I didn’t see a clear conviction reported in the press of these people, and no example has been made of them as far as I can see.

Now leave all of these prejudices aside, and think of this: these people who are chosen to handle guns in a society where gun possession is illegal and foreign, MUST be submitted to psychological evaluation. And those who do not value human life as the rest of us should not be given the opportunity to have guns. I didn’t say that all new (or old) Bahrainis should be profiled. I didn’t even suggest it. My suggestion here is to all those people who have been given the responsibility to handle guns.

I am also completely against foreigners being given any position within the security instruments. If there is a foreigner to be employed as such, s/he should be employed on merit only, in the persuits of transfer of technology, training, bomb disposal training, and any of the available positions which the person’s experience could be benefitted from and used to educate Bahrainies. But as to the low- and medium-end of the scale, I am absolutely against. So those thousands of “natoors” and police and whatever there are at the ministries of interior and defence, ship them the hell OUT. When I stop a police or military guy in the street to ask for directions I WANT TO HEAR A BAHRAINI ACCENT, savvy? When I go into a police station to report something or ask for assistance I WANT TO HEAR A BAHRAINI ACCENT. Nothing less will do.

No one can look after something more than its owner, Bahrainis are better at policing and protecting Bahrain than foreign mercenaries.

i think it would be fair and rational to argue that different cultures have had profound impact on each other and particularly in this region are not so alien to each other as you are suggesting.

Of course most of those mercenaries are as far away from our culture as the moon is from Pluto for goodness sake! Where do you think those people come from culturally? The desert of the mountains. Go look at the crimes accepted in their countries, from honour killing to keeping boys as their playthings, abusing them until they grow up and abuse more and that is almost accepted in their cultures! It is also very apparent that they’re approach to human life is rather blaze, witness the head-cutting and summary killings that happen between their tribes. Look it up.

Finally, i really take issue with your whole ‘loyalty’ question.
I don’t know if the horrible incident aroused some fatherly/patriarchal feelings in you but my question is:
shouldn’t people be loyal to the other PEOPLE they are living in community and society with, rather than some “national” concept of being loyal to the geographical boundaries (which we did not draw up) and we are confined to, or the flag it has been given to wear?
Because unless its about loyalty to the people you’re living with then its just partiotism based on a very selective and exclusive idea of nationality – ie that you can only be bahraini if you are an arab, or a muslim etcetc…

That’s worth considering. My idea of loyalty and patriotism is being at pains to do good for my country and countrymen, regardless of ethnic or religious background, and do my utmost to try to correct wrongs as I see them and defend those who deserve defending. One of the most encompassing definitions of patriotism I have ever read comes from Zainab Al-Khawajah‘s blog, in which she highlights the following Mark Twain interpretation:

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

Now I fully admit that where I went astray in my assumptions in the original article is that I didn’t even consider that smuggling arms into Bahrain is not unfeasible, and I immediately – because of my inherent prejudices – shot the accusation straight at the armed forces. That I apologise for even if the killer is proven to be from the armed forces. I should have given them a little more benefit of the doubt and considered things in a less passionate and prejudicial form.

Everything else i have said in the original post and this one I stand by.

There is an intrinsic mistrust between the people and those chosen to protect them that the country just cannot move forward without fixing this disconnect first and foremost.

Then we can work diligently at all the other mistrusts in our other structures, from the unfair and haphazard laws, the partial and non-independent judiciary, the skewed and blatant distribution of electoral districts, the dearth of government information and statistics, the unbalanced distribution of wealth, and various other things that is dragging this country and its people down.

The sad thing is that all of these things are so doable! We have the people to effect change, we have the leadership to direct them, we have the real love of the people to their land, we have all of the factors to make things happen… we just need someone brave enough to push the button and start the real age or reformation.

Do you guys know how difficult it is to find the same tiles for your bathroom that you (or the builder) originally chose when you first built your house? Well, let me tell you that it is bloody difficult, especially if you don’t know where to start.

The fortunate thing actually is the tile shops always have one person who has been with them for 20 or 30 years who remembers every single tile that shop imported. No joke, they really do! Once you find that person you can save yourself a lot of heartache.

Frances and I have been on treasure hunts to try to find the tiles they used for our master bathroom, I can honestly say that I never realised how many of these shops there are, and how affluent they all are! It must be a real fast track to riches to have a tile and bathroom fittings shop, shows how people value their “private time” I guess!

Anyway, we have been to a few and we were going no where. So I exerted more effort to corner the developer to look into their 3-year-old files and tell me exactly where they bought the tiles from, which they finally did and I went to have a look this afternoon not expecting that they would be the right ones, but wouldn’t you know it? They were! And wouldn’t you know it? They no longer carry the style!

Well, the bright side is that they have something that might match so we’ll have a funky design in that bathroom with not two, but four tile colours! Ah well, I don’t want to replace the whole bathroom at the moment, costs too much, so we’ll have to live with it for a few years and we might actually grow to love it! (or loath it, as the case may be… I’ll let you know how we feel about it in a few months )

Our house is still in turmoil, but things are progressing. They found two cracked outflow pipes and they replaced all the pipes, done the water-proofing and they’re about to fill it in and hopefully install the tiles within the next few days.

The ceiling fixing crew are scheduled to start their work on Thursday, they’ve already removed 1/3rd of the ceiling in the living room, recreated the the gypsum cornice by manufacturing a new die that matches our pattern, and hopefully by next Thursday, our house will be ours again. We are SO looking forward to that.

Ok, it’s bed-time now, I hope the server survives the night. It looks like there were heavy linking going on to some of the articles and also thousands of spam emails being directed to nonexistent users. Those problems have been looked at by the excellent support guys at Rackspace and they’re still monitoring the server. I hope it will be okay before too long.

Thanks all for your patience.

Sorry guys, the server is being subjected to an inordinate amount of spam that is brining the server to its knees. Support is looking at the problem and hope that they will be able to fix it soon, or the spammer twerps leave us alone.

Bear with us a bit…

I love this prank, a radio show asks people to set up their partners, parents, friends, etc and then call and phone-tap the conversation.

Here, a woman who set up her Jewish parents really good!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Now I know that if a show like this exists in Bahrain or the Arab world, just imagine the sectarian fun that would happen… “blood would reach the knees!”

Have fun.

I love machines! The bigger and the louder the better

This is a trip to Metals of Bahrain (MEBA) which is owned and operated by my friend Rami. I go visit once in a while when I want to get my tostesterone going and feel like a Maaayn!

This is vlog# 28

Sometimes I am actually quite happy that in Bahrain only three types of people get guns: members of the ruling family, the police and the military. Everyone else, you just don’t get it.

So when you hear of gun crimes in Bahrain, you know with a good amount of certainty who the perpetrator might be, or at least it doesn’t tax the brain too much to narrow the circle of suspicion. I wouldn’t be too surprised either, owing to the controlling nature of the government regarding guns, that even bullets have serial numbers. There is virtually no chance that you would just brush such a crime aside and say it’s drug or gang related. It just doesn’t happen like that here.

Then I can categorically say that the first thought that went through my head as I browsed Al-Waqt newspaper this morning was: the police or the military did it. End of story.

Once I started reading the short article printed with the image, that certainty became even more certain. It’s an inside job.

According to information I heard from one of Mahdi Abdulrahman Mohammed’s colleagues is that he had an argument with a some policemen earlier in the day. He left the scene of the argument and drove away in his car, as he was driving he became aware of two unmarked police cars following him. Fearing for his safety, he headed to a crowded area of Muharraq, but the two cars obstructed his path, he stopped and got out of his car. Assailants then assaulted him and riddled him with bullets and left him to die. Mahdi was unarmed.

According to the report in the paper, he actually was able to stagger a little bit toward his home, which was in close proximity of the crime’s location, but passers-by picked him up and took him to the local health centre in Muharraq where he died on arrival.

I know from some sources that police have already identified the assailants, and have cordoned off the main perpetrator’s house, who is a policeman.

May Mahdi rest in peace.

The question now must be: what is the screening process does the Ministry of Information or the Ministry of Defence for that matter adopt to actually hire their personnel who are allowed to carry arms? Do they actually conduct psychological tests on those people? Or does it suffice that the “officer” has no real affinity and affiliation to Bahrain? To be absolutely plain here: do these ministries reserve their trust only to foreigners brought in to “protect” us? A bunch of mercenaries who have been brought up in completely foreign environments and cultures?

Look for instance at all incidents of armed crimes over the last few years; every single one of them was perpetrated by “new” Bahrainis who have been brought in to be inducted into the police and military forces!

If this is the case, and for the last 30 years of my life this is what I believed to be true, then I demand from the government to immediately loosen the gun ownership laws so that I can go out and immediately buy a gun to protect myself and my family from harm. After all, in this lawless state we have arrived at, what prevents anyone who carries a gun and has a grudge against me or any other member of my family, friends, or community to just come over and empty his revolver in one of us for the sake of appeasing his slighted feelings the only way he knows how?

The government here MUST be extremely transparent in investigating this crime, their findings must be made public and perpetrators put behind bars for the rest of their miserable lives.

Moreover, the Ministry of Interior MUST re-look at its employment policies. No one looks after their country better than a countryman, as no matter how much mercenaries get paid or no matter how much you try to integrate them into the community by force by granting them haphazzard citizenship that they do not value, at the end of the day they will just say “to hell with it” and they’re on the first place back to where they came from.

And we’re left to pick up the pieces.

Who is now going to take care of Mahdi’s 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter and wife?

No one can nag better than children, I have no idea how they get that annoying feature into an art form. They’re so sweet as they go about it (most of the time, because in our household, if you nag obnoxiously, you just don’t get anything no matter how blue you get in the face!) but it’s like Chinese torture. It might take months to acquiesce to their requests, but acquiesce you shall!

That’s what that jumping, sweet, monkey in the previous post has been doing over the past few months. He wants a new computer which can run Guild Wars, a computer game which he has been continuously going on about that I just got fed up in the end and just gave in; I would buy him a new computer if he would pay half of its price. I would match the other half.

An opportunity presented itself a couple of days ago, we have had to upgrade one of the computers in the office, and its graphics card was no longer required. As the card in question is the good ATI Radeon X850 with 256MB of RAM on it which would comfortably run his most demanding games, I thought I would just get a box, tell one of the assemblers on the island to put quality components in there and deliver it. That was exactly what was done as they delivered it this morning, sans graphics card and optical drive, those I have contributed from old stock we had from demo machines, so the graphics card was accompanied by a Pioneer A06 DVD-RW drive.

Other bits and pieces in the box include 250GB drive, 1GB RAM, floppy (does anyone use those things now?) and a good box with front-access USB etc.

But the problem is they delivered the bloody thing with a pirated Windows XP on it! Now that would give the kid a good sense of right and wrong won’t it? So I called the buggers and got them to deliver a properly legal XP Pro, which I am installing as I type this in my son’s bedroom (pig sty might be a more appropriate term really! but that’s teenagers for you… I’m going to ignore that for the moment.) I wonder how long it will take to install this OS and all the other required updates and upgrades to bring the computer to a status where it is safe to leave in his hands to screw up within a couple of weeks!

That doesn’t matter, let the little twit run his games on this thing and get him off my back. I hope he enjoys it and it doesn’t interfere with his forthcoming studies too much (yeah sure… I have to have a solution for that one too!)

My son, who is 13 now, has never stopped asking questions, I guess from the moment he exited the womb. This is him at 6. I’m trying to shoot a jetski race, and he’s unleashing his 200 questions a minute at me!

I’ve just composited the questions on him monkeying around from another video…

I love the sound of his voice! Children’s voices at that age are either infuriating – like nails across a chalkboard infuriating – or lovely. I (well, okay, I’m biased) think his was lovely!

Friday.. what do you expect?!