Because the paths to the Lord are inscrutable
Because the essence of his forgiveness lies in his word and in his mystery
Because although God sends us the message
It is our task to decipher it
Because when we open our arms
The earth takes in only a hollow and senseless shell
Far away now is the soul in its eternal glory
Because it is in pain that we find the meaning of life
And the state of grace that we lose when we are born
Because God, in his infinite wisdom, puts the solution in our hands
And because it is only in his physical absence,
That the place He occupies in our souls is reaffirmed

--Pan's Labyrinth

Yes the West has liberated women, but at what cost? In our society terms like ‘gender equality’ have only served to eradicate every last trace of chivalry without having any affect on the underlying chauvinism of a culture which remains, and always will remain, patriarchal against all our best efforts. Realistically, we’ve simply traded our old female oppression for a newer, more sinister one. So when UK media are up in arms about Iran’s treatment of our women, I find their use of words very interesting.

Reading the paper today is like treading through a battlefield; the language is so loaded with landmines. And as if the petrifying anticipation of being blown up any step now wasn't enough, every so often some idiot sneaks up behind you and goes 'Boom!' to add shock value.

Do you know what I have to say to those living off shock value and fire stoking? This: Firstly--When did the public get so stupid that you think you can pass off a headline like 'A mother on parade in Iran's propaganda war' and assume we'd fail to see that you're playing the same propoganda game? And Secondly-- What gives Britain the right to play the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations card, when Israel and our mightier-than-thou allies, the U.S, are wiping their asses with the Geneva convention daily, while the world sits on its hands? We all know that the Geneva convention doesn't apply to the captives, with no state of war between Iran and Britain. And that even if it did, putting British marines on Iranian TV doesn't come close to breaking the convention in comparrison to the monstrousities committed against the Iraqis in their own lands.

Apparently some defence analyst, Paul Beaver is convinced the Iranians are 'playing to the West' because 'They know our weakness for things like fair trials, democracy, and respect for women.' Let's ignore the respect for women part for a brief moment, but fair trials? With British soldiers being cleared over detainee abuse and murder in Iraq recently? Fair trials?! I laugh in your general direction, you insolent little turd.

Elle est still angry at the world

Today's subject: Human Traffic. Resumes. Following from our last blog,
Cambodia is just one of many countries.
These attrocities just one form of the injustice our world is built on.

And get this, no matter how many laws are signed, Cambodia's corrupt powers-that-be has no intention to interrupt what has turned into a 'tourism' industry worth millions a year. The country is now an attraction for pedophiles keen on exploring new avenues after other South-East Asian nations such as Thailand and Vietnam. And here is a bit of irony to make you weep: the country's sex trade grew in the early 90s to service UN troops overseeing the transition to the current democratic government (shock, horror, an all too familiar feeling of disgust) After they left, brothel owners realized they could make good bucks catering for foreign tourists and local pedophiles, and Cambodia's child-sex trade was born.
How refreshing.

We Teach All Hearts To Break

I cannot reference the above quote to any author or source, because I've nicked it from some 60s graffiti immortalized in photograph by Peter Sanders, who I hope, will not sue me.
I’ve done so because it is relevant to what we are. It is relevant because our kindness, our yearning for innocence, our intrinsic despair necessitates hurting those we wish to protect the most.

For our children, for our younger siblings, for our most loved ones we build the illusion of a world which promises great things in the years to come. In our effort to keep them innocent, we cover their eyes and ears. In our need to keep them dreaming and believing, because we stopped long ago, we deceive them. We prepare the painfully hopeful, unassuming victim. We set in motion the events. We, who have been taught, teach other hearts to break.
And yet disillusionment is just one more harrowing experience that man must rise above. And in the breaking is something great, something which offers all that was innocent, and all that was good, and all that was worth hoping for, without the ignorance or the illusion of childhood. It takes one choice, and I think we owe it to them and to ourselves to give our all to help them make the right one. All it takes is to inspire.

In a world where the mammoth degree of pain and suffering is so overwhelming, inspiration has become a dire need. Inspiration to dispel the helplessness which turns to lethargy; to remind us that with every life lost, with every cry unheard or ignored, we lose that much more of what makes us human.
Snap. Make Poverty History style.

Today 19,250 children under the age of 16 are trapped in Cambodia's thriving sex industry. Yet, 19,250 is just a number, and we've become too desensitized to terms like 'child trafficking', and 'kiddy porn' to be remotely moved.
The lethargy sets in after a brief shudder or frown at the thought, and you swiftly navigate to another page.
…
Are you still here? Do you also feel that the 21st Century's stupendous technological advances are hollow boasts of our humanity, if slavery is still not something of our dark past? Well you're probably right and wrong. Right because they are, and wrong because that's not all they are.
I'll tell you why: the choclate bar you're having today is feeding the People Trafick industry. That's why. Because we've come to depend so much on our little comforts. Thant's why.
Oh we love being spoiled silly by those fashionable brand names. The glamorous faces of multi national corporations, banks, imperialist scum. They tell you they're doing their bit, buying fare trade coffee, funding micro finance projects in Bangladesh. I'll tell you another thing, they're lying to you. The only chocolate made from cocoa beans not grown and harvested by child slaves are the ones that say on their wrappers. They're probably more expensive than your Mars bar because get this, reality check, the only way you enjoy your chocolate without other people sufferring is if you pay up. fare and square. As for coffee shops, don't get me started on murder-funding StarBucks. And Banks with their charitable work? Investing in Micro Finance means Anjola Begum working like a slave at her new handloom or selling one of her kids to pay off the high interrest rate for her loan, so that your bank gets it's money back two-fold...or make that five-fold. And where does that go? God knows, except the 'interrest', yes that miracle money that just miraculously turns up in your account each year doesn't look too innocent, does it? No of course that' not the only way it works, there are all kinds of creative ways in which our comfort has been built on the backs of the poor in a strategic fashion which allows for us to be blind and deaf to it all.

Let's try this for a sexy advertising slogan: 'Do you wish to inspire or be inspired?' (Colgate grin) Then stop drinking Coke. Stop eatig McDonalds. And buy expensive chocolate. Boycot StarBucks, stop recieving interrest, and if it can't be helped make sure you give that money back to charity each year. And don't listen to me! Go out there, find out what you're really eating and buying. No we can't change the world by ourselves, but we can be aware and accountable for our own actions. We can stop supporting this, one person at a time.

Not being able to wake up for Fajr is a horrible grimy feeling you can't wash off. And on the asside from the spawner of all bad-feeling-days are thoughts of what has been rearing it's ugly head throughout my week.
How can something trivial and childish have such a great hold on one's life?
How do those little hurts you thought you burried long ago, come back with the immediacy of a paper cut?
How can you flinch over and over again at a single wound?
Sitting here, thinking about the pros and cons of dying young, has made me realise that the worse off are those that are left behind. They have that tragic injustice about them, young deaths. Like something perverted. And that disturbing power to affect and stay, even with those who are not closely related or associated with them.
Why is this on our agenda today?
Because of the culmination of last week.
Because of that disturbing power.
Because years later, the image of an angry boy with bloody nose and golden tan can raise ghosts from somewhere deep down.

Why on earth would I still remember what you looked like?

...
I have no right to claim a share in what only rightfully belongs to your family alone. After everything that came to pass in our lives between childhood and that summer, you are nothing to me. Nothing.
So how do I explain how it is that even though I couldn't care less or give a thought to you any more, your shadow still lingers over things. Stealthily.
How do I kill the you inside me?
This you insdie which makes no logical sense.

Elle est made funny faces to herself on the crowded train home today. She then beamed with pride and inside giggles, because nobody noticed. Everyone was lost in trying to maintain their personal spaces by gluing their gazes into middle-place, and receding into the back of their minds. But Elle est was in the present, and she found being squashed so funny and enjoyable that she squashed her nose against her arm to inside giggle more.

On the way home I noticed:
a man with very clean ears and another with arm hairs
a woman chewing gum
a long hared, head-phoned man’s hair band on his wrist
a mean looking man who was probably nice
a baby with a teddy bear-eared hat
fat juicy grape fruits at the Turks
the first watermelons of the season and daffodils.

I chased the last rays of the sun, and the sky got lighter near the flat, and there was one shiny star in it. If you stick your face into your arm, the world could look like a Kandinsky or something abstract.

Elle est was having a crisis about marrying the end of innocence, and dreams, and carefreeness. It lasted weeks until today. But she was very wrong, because everything in this world is a state of mind. A self-made reaction bubble to any situation God has laid out for you to live through at any given time. And at the end of the proverbial tunnel, when everything is illuminated, you look back and are full of love and regret. Love for a loved one who is so lost, so helpless, and so precious with her troubles. And regret for not having made a different reacting bubble. For not being as strong as her.

Allah, forgive me and make me full of wonder, like a child. So that even this state of weakness appears as the actual good thing that it is. The no-mans land. The beginning of the Elle est who will find. Who will experience. And who will hold onto with all her might, her faith for herself. And through her own eyes and not anyone elses.

Neo: You already know if I'm going to take it.
Oracle: Wouldn't be much of an oracle if I didn't.
Neo: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?
Oracle: Because you didn't come here to make a choice. You already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it.

-Matrix Reloaded

...Sky's clouded over now. Pish :(

El est still really kicking herself for missing the eclipse on Saturday, is reading: The God of Small Things --Arundhati Roy. Again.

There is something hopeful and Arthurian in a Golden Age sense about everything today. It's in the slow, noble, Gladiator soundtrack carried-away movement of the clouds across the sky. It made the dirty puddles near my flat look pretty as I left the house, and it was ringing in the London Travel anouncement man's voice at Kings cross: 'Ladies and Gentleman, there was once good service on all underground lines. One glorious, fleeting day, in the times of yore, when line ran by line in blissful harmony, and among passengers there was much rejoicing...but this morning we have some minor delays on the district and circle lines, with planned enginereing work continuing on the northern line between Camden Town and Charing Cross...'
He didn't actually say that.

But the sky is almost-childhood blue, the grey is just as illuminated as the grass, and on the glowing green or dusty, heat-waves-bouncing-off smelling illusion of tarmac and concrete, puffed up, male, fop pigeons dance round and round and round in blissful foppery, as if they didn't look ridiculous and the females weren't ignoring them.

In any case, I've decided that I'm too young to complain about housework.