War on language

Posted by tess on August 28th, 2008 in · 0 Comments

Some time ago I decided to write my photo columns in English. Well … I call it English, however it is a kind of Dutchie English, easy to comprehend and easy to listen to. The cause of this change in language lies with a dear friend, he works as a journalist for The Age, a well known Australian newspaper.

I met him some three years ago when he visited Amsterdam during the memorial day of Theo van Gogh. He came to Assadaaka and we, Ahmed James and I had some very interesting conversations. Some time ago he wrote to me and informed me of the fact that he was writing a book about Islam in Europe. He had some more questions and he was also very interested in how things are going over here. I told him to visit my web log and Zeeburg.nu. He told me that he would like that very much, but that he couldn’t understand a thing. So I started to write in English. At first I thought, well he can learn Dutch, but no, I felt suddenly that I wanted to write in English. I a way it stretches the mind to alter your daily habits, once a while.

So now I hear the voices of the everlasting suppressed ones. I want my language to be The One - at least in my own country - and if you don’t listen to me well I could make a bomb and you know my life is worthless without the reality that everybody speaks my language. So … in the name of the Language God I solemnly declare you war on language.

Photo column Tess

Dressed for the occasion

Posted by tess on August 27th, 2008 in · 1 Comment

Police finds bomb vest on teenager

The Dutch article in Het Parool from yesterday (Tuesday) tells us that yesterday (Monday) the Iraqi police had released a video on which we can see the arrest and interrogation of a female teenager (1993). On the photograph (Reuters) we see a young woman with beautiful curly hair dashed wildly around her face, standing in a slightly awkward kind of bowing position, chained on what looks like an old fashioned bed, booming breasts hanging out her bra and around her waist she wears an off white bomb vest in the same colour as the bra. Around her you can see four policemen with four different uniforms.

Something tells me that what happens on the photograph is not what is suggested in the article. I don’t know why, but it looks to arranged, so smart, so romantic, especially for a video recording or a movie.

By the way the image of the bomb vest shown in the article of the Denver Post which was delivered by the Iraqi Police looks different from the bomb vest shown in the Parool article, by Reuters.

On a different news video a policeman standing close to her laughs in a way that I think, what is he laughing about on this occasion?

The Washington Post gives us a slight show … of the bombing striptease … wow.

Photo column Tess

Cooking advise

Posted by tess on August 26th, 2008 in · 1 Comment

It was on a rainy afternoon that I saw life in a most delicate constitutional form, broad casted throughout the world. I saw with my own eyes and I heard with my own ears that people who depict themselves as evangelists, live their lives build up by fear and that fear is supported by the fact that the bible, the word of God, is on their side.

I knew already through a life changing experience of my own, that fear for others can grab you by your throat and squeeze you almost to death and the only way out is to kill that fear projected in the other person. It is your choice what form you pick out for that killing: mentally or physically.

The interviewer asked some evangelists what they thought of homosexual people. The answer came as a stroke of lightning send by a super magician and the young man answered very sure of himself:

The bible forbids it and so do I.

The next question was what they thought of Obama Barack as the future president of the United States to be. An older man, supported by eager nodding from his wife, answered with a slightly trembling voice:

That won’t be right and is impossible. Obama has a Muslim background and he doesn’t understand Christians the way we do and the way it should be.

This is really hilarious in one way because the fear of Muslims is a fear projected from within themselves and I bet that the Muslims have the same fear for Christians. Who is to blaim for that fear? Yeah, well it would be very easy to shout out loud:

God, the damn bastard of course

(sorry for my American English choice of idiom) but that wouldn’t be correct, wouldn’t it? There is no such God on earth to prove that and so I will give some good old home cooking advise to all the people who read holy books as a prescription for daily life … amen.

Grap once a while a cooking book from another culture and you will experience that the cooking advises stem from the same source of thinking: tribal status quo.

That means in daily life: fight everything and everybody who jeopardizes that tribal status quo.

Foto Tess

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