ـ "... إن فى الإنسان منطقة عجيبة سحيقة لا تصل إليها الفضيلة ولا الرذيلة ، ولا تشع فيها شمس العقل والإرادة ، ولا ينطق لسان المنطق ، ولا تطاع القوانين والأوضاع ، ولا تتداول فيها لغة أو تستخدم كلمة ... إنما هى مملكة نائية عن عالم الألفاظ والمعاني ... كل مافيها شفاف هفاف يأتي بالأعاجيب فى طرفة عين ... يكفي أن ترن فى أرجائها نبرة ، أو تبرق لمحة ، أو ينشر شذا عطر ، حتى يتصاعد من أعماقها فى لحظة من الإحساسات والصور والذكريات ، ما يهز كياننا ويفتح نفوسنا على أشياء لا قبل لنا بوصفها ، ولا بتجسيدها ، ولو لجأ إلى أدق العبارات و أبرع اللغات ... " ـ

توفيق الحكيم

Within man lies a deep wondrous spot, to which neither virtue nor vice can reach. Upon which the sun of reason and will never rise. In which the mouth of logic never speaks, the laws and rules are never obeyed, and not a language is used nor a word is ever spoken.
It is a distant Kingdom, beyond words and meanings. With everything is a sheer murmur offering wonders in a blink. From the depths of which, suffice a single tone or a flash of mind or a scent of a perfum, to allow rise of emotions, pictures and memories, a rising that will shake our being and open ourselves to things we can neither describe nor materialize even if we used the most refined of phrases or the most skillful of languages.

Tawfiq Al-Hakim.
(My humble transalation of the arabic text)

Friday, September 08, 2017

It's not exactly black and white you know

As I'm currently going very strongly through the "Dirk phase" ☺ A few hours ago I just finished watching a very good movie of his, Appointment in London (1952). It's a world war II movie, about RAF pilots based in UK during the war.
And the only thought that came into my mind - apart from  "That's a good air raid sequence" near the end - was, that this movie was made in 1952, and it's about British RAF officers and staff during 1939 to 1945 years. It's about men who wanted to defend their home land,and die trying, against an enemy who is trying to invade it, Those same men at the same mentioned years were considered in my country, Egypt , to be The enemy, Ironically for the exact same reason!, they were soldiers of an enemy who was already occupying my Home land. Many men, Egyptian that is, fought them and formed underground armed resistance against them back then and up until 1956 when all occupying British troops left Egypt. Even my grand mother hated British soldiers in the 1940s because they would walk drunk in the streets of Alexandria and harass girls and women. 
And I just wondered, if any one from my people back then should have watched that movie or the likes of it, what would he think, would he still hate the British or admire their courage?, and what would he do when he faces them in a battle?. It was armed resistance after all.
I have watched a lot of WWII movies since I was a child but this is the first time I ever think of such a thing really. And once again it was hard to make up my mind on my final decision regarding this matter. When I was a kid and in history lessons I hated the British who occupied my land, and today I loved the British who defended their land. The same story even goes today maybe with different details but the base is the same. Between the two situations you realize that this life is really about grey scale not the black and white.  Maybe that explains why specially in war time leaders from opposite sides were sometimes respecting each other. 

This next article is a good one from a British point of view, but as far as I'm concerned, we were liberating Our Country ☺.

forgotten war fought by a forgotten army

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