To the self

The best memory was walking along the shores of Brackeley Beach, P.E.I. We picked seashells that now lay in the organizer of your car and watched the sunset on the Atlantic horizon. Maybe it's a tie, I absolutely loved Peggys Cove too. There was something self-fulfilling about watching the waves crash against the boulders. It makes you feel tiny.

I guess this pretty much sums up how I felt about 2010. The year I felt tiny, and realized the Greatest wonder before me. The year I make mistakes. The year of trust and mistrusts. The year I realize what it really means to fight, what happiness really depends on, who I really am. 

The year I realize, that I am only human. We all are. 

For deeper love, stronger faith and dedication in the Almighty. To greater closeness with my family and contagious laughters at home and in the car. To beautiful blue skies ahead, and realizing that even without blue skies I can have fun and be happy. To simple things in life. To wisdom, and patience and criticality without being judgmental. To learning, and continuous growth. & writing on more days with least paranoia. To overcoming my fears of silence, with serenity. To trusting myself. To singing the songs playing while doing grocery. To leisurely reading while laundry. To wearing my favorite sweaters on rainy days. To learning to love the rain, snow, sunshine and cloudy days. To smiling to bus drivers and thanking them. To change, without being a different person inside. To awareness, and strength, and persevering.

To making mistakes, falling, regretting and forgiving as the root of strength.To carry out these words and act upon it. To becoming human, embracing weaknesses and gracefully growing. To continue being tiny, under His greatness.

=] It will be the year I reach two decades old, InsyaAllah.
May He protect us all, and grant us strength.
To being positive.

Much love from me. Have a wonderful second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year.

<3 =)

Indecisive

I think about things, and sometimes my thoughts manifest to an overwhelming paranoia. I don't remember what happened the past three months ago, but I always find excuses to say it was terrible and I wanted the year to end. I don't like feeling overwhelmed, and I don't like silence when I'm all alone at night. Silence makes me think. Thinking makes me feel messed up. When I feel that way, I blog. I write my heart out. I write because it calms me down.

But I was in a car, with my best friend and we drove past my high school. We drove past streets I used to walk to every morning to go to school. I grew up. That's what happened. We talked about memories of two years ago, but it felt like decades back. Time. Time. Time....it has always been about time. Rewind buttons do not exist. You experience something each day, and you will get nothing back, but just fragments of memories. Maybe sometimes, you get a feeling inside of you, like warm fluid draining through your heart down to your stomach. I felt that. And I started thinking, and feeling paranoid.

I don't want 2011 to come yet. Okay, maybe I do. Or not. I don't know. Never mind, I'm just confused really.

I feel so old.

Democracy & Secularism

I am sipping my can of Pepsi and Rocky is staring at me. With a book by Tariq Ramadan loosely resting on my tummy. Entitled "The Quest for Meaning", I am just about ten pages through the book. Reading how perfectly he arranges his sentences just inspired me to hit up my blogger dashboard. He is crisp with words, poetic with metaphors, but that goes without striking the most precise points. In some way or another, I want to be like him. A poet, philosopher, a critical thinker, and more than anything, an intellectual defender of the Islamic faith.

During the convention, he spoke of laicite or secularism within the Western community and the role of religion. Sometime ago, I wrote a paper for my Women's and Gender Studies' course on this topic. I concluded with reference from Joan Wallach Scott that the politicizing of the veil was an act of 'controlling' the population of immigrant Muslim community in France to maintain the spirit of eurocentrism. The majority of the Islamic community in France arrived from the predominant countries once colonies of France. The "veil" is an exoticized term, a metaphorical symbol of the unknown. The unknown, is the threat of France being colonized by their historical colonies, which is a premise of the hijab ban.

Dr. Tariq approached this topic uniquely. He asserted that it is possible for a state to be completely separate from religion through secularism. Provided, that neither infringes on the other. Meaning, the state does not impose on religion and/or vice versa. This does not mean a complete divorce of the two, because pluralism demands a variety of beliefs of which stems from religious and cultural biases. This makes so much more sense to me. In Law, State and Constitution, Mark Wahlberg (my prof), constantly reiterated from the Federalist written by Madison about popular sovereignty, and echoed Rousseau's (Frenchy philosopher) "will of the people". Clearly, social institutions are becoming more diverse ethnically and ideologically, which means that secularism is inevitably tasked with embracing the variety of "wills" as imposed by "democracy".

A hijab ban contradicts freedom of religion, and minority rights. So what happens to the will of the minority under eyes of laicite? France claim this ban was done in the name of strict equality within the public realm. A ban, is an act of prohibition, a proclamation of something as immoral under the legal framework. So a piece of cloth, a symbol of faith to a particular religious group is declared to be forbidden as it violates the notion of equality. So I guess France should ban male facial hair next...since growing a beard is a sign of faith, right? What gives the right of a state to declare how a person dresses up as immoral and a violation of equality? ''Democracy' and 'laicite' does give that right apparently. But we look through that excuse and see that authority, power and intolerance as the true impetus.

But trust me, as our little global village diversify, it will not be much longer until the "will of the people" will bite France in the butt. Society advances, institutions change, and as Tariq Ramadan emphasized, we are past the discourse of integration. French Muslims are citizens of the France's 'laicite' institution, and as Muslims are citizens of various other Western countries. I am in Canada, a Canadian citizen, and I am Muslim Canadian. I do not support Canada's troops in Afghanistan, and I have officially made it a personal goal to fight for the Sharia and defend it as it has been commonly misunderstood. We do not seek or inhabit to terrorize countries we call home. But we are here to challenge the institutions and carry out societal progression with respect, tolerance and human dignity. What this goes back to is that the state should support religion as much as religion should be supportive of the state. Support by engaging in critical discourse without imposing nor diminishing the other. The democratic principle demands voices be heard not silenced.

Okay enough ranting.   =P
But seriously, Tariq Ramadan is my role model.

You know when you watch someone you love be really funny, and you think to yourself that person "will go really far in life"...and you get the warm feeling of pride inside watching that person smile?

=] I felt that today. And I hope that person continues to be happy in everything that comes in life's way.

I just had the most memorable and sweetest lunch. 

Shakespeare

Othello killed his wife Desdemona despite her claims of being innocent. Othello's Error is the term coined by Paul Ekman when an individual falsely accuses one who is innocent through Facial Action Coding System. Robert Dziekanski's death resulted because of FACS and the discretion of the police, with regards to using taser.

I am Othello. & I don't want you to end up like Desdemona.
So I am really sorry for my lack of better judgment and silly obsession. I should be more like Rosalind from As You Like It. She is after all, my favourite character in my favorite play.

But this is me, as Miranda from The Tempest back when I was in grade 8. I was such a drama queen.

l'orage

Dans mon coeur,
il est comme le feu orange
il pleut
sur ma tête

il m'a donné sa parole
elle etait vides comme le verre
mais je l'ai prise tout comme le trésor
bien que dans mes mains
il n'y avait rien

Bumblebee

A lonesome flower, stands tall.
The only chrysanthemum in a field
The last satchel of nectar
Surrounded by grass so green.
For a solitary honey bee.

The flower and the bee.
Acquainted to be
Companions under the glorious clouds.
Such wonder and simplicity

For every honey bee,
The hive lays far from the flower to see
& like every busy bee,
Time is a blessing for lively slavery.

So the lonesome flower waits,
With summery hopes of duty.
Still waiting, and wilting with dignity,
For that one busy honey bee.