Contemplation

I have so far been successful in avoiding the horrible events that some have decided to present us during such a festive time. I have also deliberately refrained from writing about it, mainly because I refuse to jump in amongst idiots to end up with a pointless row.

However, glancing so swiftly at the newspapers and some blogs these past few days to notice the (not so) pleasant news about our (not so) safe Bahrain, a thought revisited me since it last did when I had started a “straight-forward-times” blog. Perhaps people could do with a “good news” reporter, or, quite disturbingly yet so plausibly, people could do with a “bad news” reporter. I reckon that readers wouldn’t be satisfied either way, not the Bahraini public at least.

Why? Because “good news” will be regarded as being spin-doctored and “bad news” will be regarded as being incitive. Because the majority of Bahrainis have some sort of extreme neurotic attributional bias; i.e. if its good then its because of internal factors (because of us), and if its bad then its because of external factors (because of them). The majority’s thinking is logically flawed by the lack of subjectivity, bias, historical hatred and narcissism.

I snapped out of it, and thought to myself of how pointless it would be to try and report good news (or even bad news) to the public. Its already hard to find “good things” to cover, and bad news will only be taken any way but constructively.

I started feeling some depressive mood creeping in, but then I was save by another thought, derived from my passion for linguistics and communication. “People need dialogue!!”, I so simply figured. Perhaps the public could do better with hearing what they, only so far, think is the opposite opinion.

Scrutiny is ever so unresolvable when it comes to news of events, incidents, and happenings. It is less problematic when we have dialogue. We can simply talk some more. I don’t think we’ll have a problem there, for all we do is talk.

Do you have something to say?

I spent the greatest night in Bahrain, so far, last Friday at the Jazz Night event organized by Elham. I had tried to practice playing a few numbers, but unfortunately I’ve not managed to play anything reasonably well enough. I guess I’ve always been too hard on my playing, however, this changed after having attended these jazz sessions.

I’m faced with a great difficulty now. I already find it hard translating my thoughts into words, and to attempt translating music into words is well beyond my ability. Let alone jazz music. Let alone great jazz music. So, I will be selfish and won’t share the eventful night, and instead, I will share my thoughts about how it transformed me.

At the end of it, everybody had already left, and the event host was already cleaning up. I stuck around for a while, along with a young and brilliantly pleasant piano player whom I had the opportunity to be a fan of (even for only one night). He was at the corner of the main hall, lightly stroking the keys. Slowly walking towards him, not wanting to distract him from playing, he noticed me and invited me to play something with him.

Now, the first and only time I’ve touched a piano was a few years back, at university, sitting next to someone I dearly admire. She taught me a few chords. This time was my second. The young pianist slid to the side, inviting me to sit down and play “what I felt sounded right”. I told him that I wouldn’t know what to play. He showed me a secret chord and told me to “have at it” and play whatever keys within the scale.

And that was the best I’ve played on a piano in my life, so far at least.

I woke up the next morning, scatting while I got out of bed, skipping down the stairs in alternating intervals, and finally running a tea spoon on differently sized tea cups while making breakfast. I was humming throughout the day. Today, I’m going to get my own music keyboard. I’m swapping the rock and pop CDs with jazz and blues ones. And, like jazz, I won’t be too hard on myself. Like jazz, I’m going to be colorful. Like jazz, I’m going to be quite unpredictable.

Finally, I would like to thank the host for delivering one of the greatest nights I ever had.

Yesterday I attended the Elham event at Albareh Art Gallery and Cafe. Performances of “punk folk” acoustic music, photography, poetry and paintings filled the evening with muse. It is quite difficult for me to describe it in
detail, so you will probably have to go to one to really get what its all about.

But, what really left a great impression on me was Laurence Brown’s segment on digital photography. Laurence teaches at university, and that is exactly why his delivery appealed to me. Whatever subject one is speaking about, it sounds more compelling and engaging when the delivery is entwined with passion and love for the subject.

Even when speaking in technical terms, which most take as boring and confusing at certain times, I felt such immense interest that I thought I will end up buying a camera first thing in the morning the
very next day.

The love for colors and light showed in his stories; the trouble that one needs to go through to reflect the right amount of light, provide the right amount of saturation, and achieve the all so sweet depth in
the final print. This light, this saturation and this depth, is also what I search for in text.

I can barely remember the last time I had so much passion for what I do.

Because I happen to read the Guardian so religiously, I stumbled upon this magnificent design: a garden stand-alone water feature that requires no wiring, no complicated installation and runs on solar power.

As if it was perfected for our little sunny island, those who are lucky to have their little gardens, can enjoy a soother and greener atmosphere with this feature.

I’m not aware if these are available locally, but they are definitely available online (here and there). Buy your own or be inspired by the idea, we’ve got a lot of free sunshine and its about time we make use of it.

Some of the Arabic poetry written by some Bahraini poets, that is. I ought to be blunt about this, mainly because I’m really the linguistics enthusiast, and I have to make a stance; some of what is written is hardly poetry.

I’m not the renowned critic, but I take the matter to heart. Of previous conversations with colleagues and friends, I always made the point of using language, first and foremost, as a tool to convey meaning. And, when someone starts to speak without meaning, let alone it being poetry, my ears start bleeding.

It was at an event I attended last night. An artist, a poet, and a number of translators were present. I had to reserve my opinion regarding the artist because I haven’t seen her work, or much of it at least. The poet, I believe I made my case regarding his work, however still, for some to argue that the lack of meaning is with the modern trend in Arabic poetry is embarrassing. Shamefully embarrassing I tell you, Shamefully!!

Perhaps the translators are the ones that I least victimize, although some also made an embarrassment of the language they translated the material to. Others, surprisingly, admitted attempting a translation of the meaning; well done!!

I do not know whether it is the excessive Arab pride or the lack of quality assurance (but we stopped caring for that a long time ago, haven’t we), but when you, the artist, whatever sort you are, think that you “got it” first time, you are greatly mistaken. It takes a long time to find your vision, and it takes a long time to find your voice. Until you do, all that you do shall be considered noise.

Someone else beat me to this news, but I’m more excited for the appointed designer than the actual development near the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).

I watch a documentary about Zaha Hadid’s work on the BBC four channel a few years ago while I was still studying at university. I was completely blown away by her designs; so much that I was almost considering changing my degree program to that of design.

The $3.5bn development, which will surround the BIC, will have buildings designed by the Iraqi-British Zaha. The deconstructivist architect’s designs are known for, well, their deconstructivist look. Sleek, shiny, powerful, and most of all, overwhelmingly grandiose, sometimes in principle, mostly in substance.

Since the development will surround the BIC, a look at the picture (to the left) would give a good idea of Zaha’s interior design. This is the BMW plant, and yes, those car production lines are running directly on top of staff offices. Her vision was (if I recall correctly from one of the interviews) to bring about a more collective working environment to the plant, so as to have BMW professionals of all levels working side by side (and floor by ceiling for that matter).

One would think that a deconstructivist vision to design would be rather bland for the exterior, however it is certainly not with Zaha’s designs. What is seen at the bottom, is Zaha’s proposed design for a preforming arts centre (built on an island) in Dubai.

You like? (you better do, otherwise it will be a waste of $3.5bn)

The topic has always been a daunting one to my mind, due to the lack thereof. However, it has come up at the last bloggers meeting that I’ve attended. And, upon my return home, a few thoughts came to mind, and it only tempted me to revisit this topic once again.

“What does it mean, for you, to have a national identity?” I asked, some didn’t hear it, some kept quite, some seemed to be thinking about it, and one person honestly said that they can’t possibly find an answer to that question. I realized that I stroked an open wound, and perhaps I write now to make up for it.

Without being too academic or pedantic about the topic, I’d say that, generally, the concept of identity is an evolving on. Locally, for (a simplistic view and) example, the Bahraini people (surely) have a uniquely individual identity, an another one that encompasses a larger group (be it professional, geographic, sectarian, and so..), and a grand national Bahraini one.

I’ve also come to realize that the smaller scope sets of identity do not necessarily, if at all, add up to the wider ones, at least on a personal level. I believe, regrettably, that that is exactly why the whole nation does not feel like “one” nation. Day in, day out, we are left disjointed; floating around to freely subscribe to a floating identity that only seems to be a shared one. It is never so, though.

Not only in Bahrain, but the result of this discontinuity in what ought to be a cumulative identity is having sub-group identities being more salient (on-line, if you like) than that of the more grand (national) identity. No wonder, then, that one is unable to define what it means to be Bahraini.

I may have rubbed off some pessimism off someone, but it only seems to me that the only things that we, as a nation, share in common are life-long debt, laziness, hopelessness, and the undying thirst for Vimto in Ramadhan.

Is it not about time that we did something about our environment? Although Bahrain has a couple of organizations that are concerned with the environment, one finds the local majority completely ignorant about issues like energy conservation, recycling, global warming and climate change.

Perhaps I would be criticized for claiming the ignorance of the majority here, and so I shall take up the challenge and bet the majority to prove me wrong on this one, for I’d be glad to lose this time.

The facts do remain though. Many people still litter, and many others leave their lights on unnecessarily, think that stand-by modes are energy efficient, crank up air conditioning to freezing levels, and cannot properly spell the word “recycle” (or any positively associated word with the prefix “re-”).

During the previous bloggers meeting, and thanks to a wiseman and a star, we had achieved the “blogger’s prophecy” (which requires the common presence of three or more bloggers at any one time and place) and an epiphany was bestowed upon us.

It was to do something “cool”; to become (following eMoodian fractionalogy) half blogger, half prophet, and half tree-hugger.

Prophecies don’t lie, and thus I found myself googling environmentalism and stumbled upon my inescapable destiny. I clicked-through to GlobalCool.Org. There, I came across one of my eternal loves, whom I fell even more in love with her after reading her following quote:

“Stop completely twatting your planet, because we haven’t got anywhere else to live.“

And so, my environmentalism mini-season begins.

Modern photography, prose, poetry, and beautiful music; the venue substituted tables for chairs as the increasing crowd settled down for the event to start. Friends and family showed, a multicultural bunch followed, and closer friends thereafter.

Elham introduced the guests, who took to the floor one after the other. Arthur D’Souza discussed his unique techniques of combining positive film and colored paper to create beautifully framed layers that speak beyond the images created.

The dazzling, South-African writer, Melissa van Maasdyk then managed to lose her essay papers, however, short to be found and read to the audience. Personally, this lost-and-found theme gave new meaning to her short essay. Perhaps, this theme will extend its meaning to her “never-ending story”.

The venue was also honored by having the mesmerizing Bahraini poet, Hameed Al Qaed, recite some of his Arabic and English poems alongside the beautiful Oud music, played by Hasan Al Hujairi, who stole the end of the show with a Japanese-Arabic fusioned piece.

Elham, that is muse, and mused I was. What was once an unappealing, and then lost, identity that I associated with Bahrain, is now replaced with a newly discovered culture. I found a new home within an abandoned one.

Coming back to Bahrain a little bit more than a year ago, I found myself becoming increasingly misplaced; disappointed by the lost hope, the mechanical routine, that most people subscribed to. While I was then surrounded by saddened, despaired and despondent people, I now found those with a passion, a glowing core, and a bright future. These artists, my heroes, they found and realized what others took for dreams.

More to what I hope, is for such culture to be bolstered anew within a re-invented brand of Bahrain; to invite designers, artists, film makers, writers and musicians, to this island; to establish a hub of galleries and “culture cafés”.