On the Ground in Pakistan

My good friend Sehba Sarwar is posting and has posted a lot of her on the ground thoughts, experiencies and observations on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan on her blog, Daily Noise.

Of course, right now the main writing subject is life post-Bhutto. A good place to find some pictures and info that is often hard to find. And to understand how the images we do see are discovered, taken, packaged, repackaged, produced and distributed for us to see. Right to the source.

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Let's go. I'm ready now. You have five minutes to get dressed and then we're leaving. If you don't shut up, I'm gonna walk out and never speak to you again. That dog at my feet is bothering me. Put on my shoes. They're on the floor by the rice paper. My grandmother is waiting. Hurry up. I want to go see my grandmother. And your daddy too. Give me your hand. Like this spread your palm out wide. Hold your hand open. Now grab my hand and I'm getting up. Help me. You're only welcome here because you're my kin and I have to accept you. This is the most attention I've had in years. The lights are off now aren't they. Now hurry up. I didn't ask about the day or the night. Let's go already. We're on the road to Houston. I have to get to the garage apartment. You have five minutes to get ready and you should put on your clothes because if you're not ready I'm leaving anyway. Did someone pick the kids up from school today. I'm ready for blue to be going now. We have to be a ready for the literary party. The railroad was following the musical instrument several months ago because it was raining so much. Who are you. My eyes aren't so good anymore. You are on young people are on their way to being established. I'm ready to leave here. Let's just walk around the bed out there and then into the circle back there. Where are we now. Right I know where we are. Not far. Drive me home. Come on. I wanna go to bed. You don't understand. You children make me nervous. I want one of the boys to take me down to the apartment. Let us go on. Put your nickel in it and start watching the birds. Do you have the keys. I have to get home already. Let's go.

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The faggot's gotta be perfectly straight.

El puño de palitos tiene que ser derechito, derechito.

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Tamaño Full

Pues entonces me dices que tú crees que sí es verdad que dentro de unos años ya se arreglará todo eso, que pues ya me hacen ciudadano, verdad, o sea que sí no tarda demasiado verdad, una decada o algo.

You gotta turn that beating stick into a walking stick.

Pero pues la verdad es que el chileno ahora ya nos hemos enemistado y pues ya sabes.

You gotta come in on it sometime.

No puedo creer que sea así como tú dices como una ola, pero pues sí como tú dices pues.

I've been looking for a seeinguy dog.

Me dijo que ahora está hasta dando pinches clases del español y pues yo digo que bueno pues es un logro pues.

I found out and like the government, gotta talk with them just so they can open the way and let me buy one a them Guatemala houses.

Sí pues no tiene que ser mañana pero con tal de que un día me caso con una ciudadana y pues a ver que tanto me abren la puerta.

I went to Oaxaca there were teachers in the streets like Fuck you.

La verdad quiere que regrese pero ni modo.

All the Latin countries, like an economic opportunity.

Ni pa tanto guey, como si fuera mucho.

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Sanity, Lynching and the Story of Joe Horn

Last month, an Anglo man, Joe Horn, shot two undocumented, Afro-Colombians in their backs, killing them, as they robbed his neighbor's empty home in Pasadena, Texas. Pasadena is an industrial suburb of Houston, full of oil refineries and chemical plants, with a shrinking white population and surging Latino population. According to the census, in the last fifteen years, the town has gone from over 70% Anglo to almost 70% Latino. Well, the white folks are getting restless. Afraid, enraged.


Now we have a one man lynch mob, supported by a chorus of frightened, angry people. To hear what this one-man lynch mob sounds like in action, click here to listen the 911 call as he takes his vigilante (in)justice. I have to warn you the tapes are frightening. Turns out the police were there already when Horn decided to take matters into his own, fallible hands.


And many herald Horn as a hero, worthy of praise. Do we not have a system of justice in this country? Courts and due process? Since when is it every man for himself? Is murder really the appropriate response when no lives are at risk?


It seems pretty simple.

Strike out with rage.

This is what happens.

Violence breeds more of itself. Off-kilter. Madness. Makes sense though deeply. Time to brush up on the history of lynching in Texas. Nothing new here unfortunately.


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Language as a whole is threatened.

Not only the video but also quotes from an interview with Moroccan poet (writing in Arabic) Mohammed Bennis:


Language as a whole is threatened. Threatened with becoming abbreviated to simple things for political or economic discourse.

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It is possible for us to notice when we watch the news that all newscasts have the same language, whereas poems do not all have the same language. So, there is the language of profit. The language of poetry, however, is in opposition to this profit, and it does not enter into the logic of the market. For this reason it preserves meaning. And it leaves human experience, through language, as a live experience.


A bio of Bennis is here. The whole interview is here on the website for the journal Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, which is out of London and dedicated to publishing Arabic literature in translation. Here is a link to a bilingual version of a poem of Bennis.

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Gotta see this.

See the whole slideshow here.

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Delinquency is a growing vice.

As in meanings numbers one and four.

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