ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

Kristen Gillespie

A R A B I C A ارابيكا

AFTER BIN LADEN
*Kuwaiti daily Al-Anba published the purported will of Osama bin Laden, a four-page farewell that the Al-Qaeda leader predicts will come following "betrayal" and "treachery" of those around him. While he did not mention the number of wives and children he leaves behind, Bin Laden orders his wives not to remarry and his children "not to work in Al-Qaeda or at the front," presumably Afghanistan. Bin Laden warns women to "beware of wanton display and the traditions of the West," and urges his followers to continue the fight against "the Jews and the Crusaders."

ODE TO OBL
*In an op-ed entitled "The Osama bin Laden I Knew," Abdel-Bari Antwan, the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, recalls his interview with bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains in 1996. A "simple, humble, polite" man, bin Laden said with tears in his eyes that "my wish is to die a martyr." Antwan, a popular Arabic-language pundit, wrote that "this victory did not come cheap," referring to the US war in Afghanistan going on 10 years.

FACEBOOK DEPLOYMENT
*The Syrian Revolution facebook group now explicitly declares that it is coordinating a national uprising to begin with its 166,000 members, and offering real-time reports on the ground: "The army is deploying additional units to the middle of Douma on Jalaa Street, while maintaining its stranglehold on the entire town."

AND IN OTHER NEWS
The Saudi news site Alsabq.org reported on a new clinic in Jeddah that uses Quranic verses to treat victims possessed by genies, or jinn. Symptoms in women of possession generally include depression, loss of appetite, sleep disorders, anxiety and even back pain, the paper reported. Clinic owner and religious sheikh Adnan al-Hashemi discussed the case of a woman who was suffering greatly because a "passionate genie" was in love with her and refused to leave her body. When al-Hashemi began reciting Quranic verses over the woman, "one of her daughters began screaming and crying out in pain," he said. "I knew that the genie tormenting her did not want to leave." Over the course of several visits, al-Hashemi asked the woman if during her dreams "someone wants to establish a marital relationship with you?" The woman answered in the affirmitive, "which confirmed my suspicions," al-Hashemi said. The article notes that even infidels are susceptible to possession by genies.

May 4, 2011

photo credit: illustir

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ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

Kristen Gillespie

A R A B I C A ارابيكا

May 4, 2011

photo credit: illustir

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What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

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Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

David Peinado via Zuma Press

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Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.